Miraculous: Blackguard
by Therealgamehero
Summary: The miraculous are gone, stolen through the ages or lost to time, and now Ladybug and Chat Noir must get them back There's one problem, Paris has deemed them as the villains. Now they're against the police, the people, and a new "hero" calling himself Hawkmoth and his army of super powered citizens.
1. Chapter 1: Thieves Among the Masses

**EDITOR'S NOTE:**

This was inspired by Thebirdfromthemoon-art. She created an amazing anti hero AU concept and I couldn't help but write for it. Check her out on Tumblr, her art is absolutely amazing and creative.

 **MIRACULOUS: BLACKGUARD**

 **CHAPTER 1: THIEVES AMONG THE MASSES**

"Marinette,"Sabine called from the kitchen downstairs, "your alarm has been going off for fifteen minutes, you're going to be late for your first day back at school."

The young black hair girl crawled out from under her covers and lazily turned off her alarm, "got it mom." She crawled down off her bed and made her way down to the kitchen, letting out a yawn, kissing her mother on the cheek, then taking a seat at the table to begin to make her breakfast, "I bet you anything that Chloe will be in my class again."

"Four years in a row," Sabine said with a mild tone of shock, "is that even possible?"

"Definitely," Marinette said as she poured a bit of chocolate mix into her bowl, "lucky me."

"Don't say that," Sabine said as she stirred the contents of a pot, "it's the start of a new year. I'm sure everything will be just fine."

Marinette let out a mile and nodded in agreement before setting the chocolate mix down, causing an orange to fall out of the fruit bowl and roll around the table to knock everything over. Marinette let out a disheartened sigh and an upset face as she cleaned up the chocolate mix. Sabine helped pick up the milk, then gently rubbed Marinette's cheek in a comforting manner, which lifted Marinette's heart a bit.

Marinette quickly cleaned up, ate breakfast, than changed into her everyday clothes before walking down to the bakery to see her parents had already begun their day for work. Her father hummed out La Marseillaise, and spun around to reveal a small box of macarons (actually, it only seemed small in his hands, it was actually a decent size.)

"Dad these are so awesome," Marinette said as she looked at the beautifully crafted macarons, each one bearing the bakery's logo on them.

"Glad you like them," Tom said as he closed the box and handed it to Marinette.

Marinette took the box with glee, "thank you dad, my class will love them. You're the best.

Tom gently ruffled Marinette's hair, "we're the best, thanks to your amazing designs." He held up the small sketch book showing Marinette's design for the logo.

Marinette let out a delighted little hum and threw her arms around her father, causing her to accidentally drop the box of macarons. Tom stuck out his foot and caught the macarons on top of his shoe and tossed them back into his hands. He gave the box back to Marinette as Sabine handed her her backpack.

"Thanks," Marinette said, giving both of her parents on the cheek. "I'll see you tonight," she ran out to the bakery and towards the school, but her path was cut off when the light changed and the cars in front of her took off. Marinette quickly came to a stop, nearly falling into the street as she came to a stop. She let out a sigh of relief as she regained her footing, but then a scream of horror when she saw what was in the street.

An old man with a walking stick was in the middle of the street, despite the fact that the signal said don't walk. Marinette heard a car honking and quickly turned to see a car zooming down the street. She acted quickly, running into the street and pulling the man back onto the sidewalk before the car could hit him. However, she did trip over herself once she was back on the sidewalk and fell onto her face.

"Thank you miss,"The old man said as Marinette pushed herself up. He then caught eye of the box of macarons which had fallen over with Marinette and scattered all over the sidewalk, "oh, what a disaster."

Marinette freaked out a bit when a stranger who wasn't paying attention stepped on one of the macarons. "Don't worry," Marinette said as she picked up the box and gathered the macarons that weren't crushed, "I'm no stranger to disasters. Besides, there are still a few left."

The old man took one of the remaining macarons and took a bite, letting out a delighted hum at how good it tasted, "delicious."

Marinette gave a delighted smile, but jumped when she heard the school bell ring, "Oh no, I'm gonna be late!" She gave the man a respectful bow, "have a nice day sir." She then took off running towards the school, hoping she would make it to class on time.

The old man let out a small laugh as he watched Marinette run away, "thank you very much young lady."

 **o0o**

Marinette burst into the classroom just before class was ready to begin.

"Nino," Ms. Bustier said, paying no mind to Marinette as she entered class, "why don't you sit at the front of the class this year."

The boy in the back of the class groaned. He slowly dragged his stuff out of his seat and trudged his way to the front of the class. Nino sat in the front row as Marinette took her spot in the second row.

Marinette was sitting peacefully until someone slammed their well manicured hand onto her desk. "Marinette Dupain-Cheng," Chloe said in her normal pretentious manner.

Marinette let out a disheartened sigh, "here we go again."

"That's my seat," Chloe said as she straightened out.

"But Chloe," Marinette said in a low, upset tone, "this has always been my seat."

"Not anymore," Someone said from behind her. Marinette turned around to see that Sabrina had slid into the seat next to her while she wasn't looking. "New school, new year, new seats."

"So why don't you just go and sit beside that new girl over there," Chloe said as she pointed to a seat next to a girl in the front row.

Marinette thought for a second, "but..."

"Listen," Chloe cut off, "Adrien's arriving today..." She pointed to the seat in front of her, "and since that's going to be his seat..." she slammed her hand down on Marinette's desk again, " _this_ is going to be my seat." She slammed both her hands on the desk this time, "get it?"

Marinette had to think again, "uh... who's Adrien?"

Sabrina and Chloe just laughed. "Can you believe she doesn't know who Adrien is," Chloe chuckled, "what rock have you been living under."

"He's only a famous model," Sabrina added in.

"And I am his best friend," Chloe continued, "he adores me." She gestured back to the open seat, "now go on, move."

"Hey," Someone said behind Chloe. Chloe turned around to see the new girl standing right in front of her. "Who elected you queen of seats."

"Ooh," Chloe hummed with delight, "look Sabrina, we've got a little do gooder in our class this year. What are you gonna do super newbie? Shoot beams at me with your glasses?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," the new girl said in an almost menacing tone. She reached around grabbed Marinette by the arm, "come on." Marinette quickly gathered her stuff as the girl pulled her by the arm down to the front row, but Marinette tripped on the last step and ended up dropping the last of the macarons.

"Sorry, sorry," Marinette said as she cleaned up the small mess she made.

Marinette looked at the box that was once full of delicious looking macarons, now it only had one. Marinette let out a depressed sigh as she contemplated how badly her day was going so far.

"Chillax girl," the new girl said, "it's no biggie."

"I so wish I could handle Chloe the way you," Marinette said.

"You mean the way Majestia does it," the girl said as she pulled out her phone. On the screen was the picture of a superheroine with the word "Majestia" in gold lettering above her. "She says that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing." She pointed at Chloe, "well that girl over there is evil, and we are the good people, we can't let her get away with it."

"Well that's easier said than done," Marinette said, "She loves to make my life miserable."

"That's cause you let her girl," the new girl said, "you just need more confidence."

Marinette let out a small smile. She reached into the box and pulled out the last macaron, snapping it in half so they could share. "Marinette," she introduced herself as she gave her new friend part of the pastry.

"Alya," the other girl replied as she took it. They both took their halves of the macaron and ate them happily. Marinette was delighted that she had made a new friend, and been more delighted that she found someone who can stick up to Chloe.

"For those of you who don't know me by now," Ms. Bustier said as she wrote her name on the board, "my name is..."

As Ms. Bustier introduced herself and started her lesson, Chloe looked down at the seat in front of her where Adrien was supposed to be sitting this year. "Uhg," Chloe groaned, "he should be here by now."

 **o0o**

Adrein ran down the sidewalk, looking at the school that was just a little bit further in front of him. As he ran, a car came to a screeching halt in front of the school and the familiar red haired secretary and gorilla man stepped out.

"Adrien," Natalie said as she stepped out of the car, "please reconsider. You know what your father wants."

"But this is what I want to do," Adrien said. He turned to run up the stairs, but stopped when he heard what sounded like a man in pain. He spun around to see an old man on the ground, struggling to reach for his cane. Adrien quickly ran over to help the man up and give him his cane.

"Thank you young man," the old man said as he got back up onto his feet.

Adrien let out a satisfied smile before turning around to go back to the school, but he was surprised to find that his path was blocked by Natalie and the Gorilla. He walked up to them, "I just want to go to school like everybody else, what's so wrong with that? Please don't tell my father about all this." The two adults silently guided Adrien back into the car.

The old man watched as Adrien was driven away, spinning around, throwing his cane over his shoulder, and whistling as he walked away.

 **o0o**

The first half of Marinette's day was uneventful. Class, class, Chloe, and more class. She was fairly happy when she was finally able to go home for lunch break. She said goodbye to Alya and returned back to the bakery. She entered through the side entrance, the bakery was probably busy for lunch so she didn't want to bug the customers. She went upstairs to find that the house was empty. She figured it would be, her parents were likely dealing with customers.

She grabbed something small from the fridge (she knocked a couple things down out as she did so and she had to clean those up) then made her way up to her room. She was debating between working on designs or just playing some video games by herself. There was also the option that she could start early on her homework, or maybe...

She stopped as she got to her desk and saw a black box on her desk. It was a large octagonal box that with red... Marinette wanted to say Chinese designs. It had a series of golden studs along the side, each one with a different marking on it. She tried to pick it up, it had a bit of weight to it. "Maman," Marinette called down from her room. There was no answer from her mother. This seemed like the kind of thing that her mother would do, gifting Marinette something like this.

Marinette had to admit, the box looked really nice. She couldn't help but wonder what was inside. Marinette took the box and sat down on her chaise with it, examining it a bit closer. She slowly opened the box, desperately curious about what was inside. She wondered if it was something that her mother thought she would like or would look cute on her or...

Absolutely nothing. The box had five small sections around it, each one a different color and with a different design in the center. In the center of the box was a yin-yang design. One side of the yin-yang had a green cat paw in it, the other had a red circle with black spots on it. Although, she was wrong, the box wasn't completely empty. On the red side of the yin-yang was a pair of earrings with the same design as the red circle on the yin-yang. She didn't notice them at first because they blended in.

She picked up the earrings and examined the box a bit closer, curious if there was more to it. There had to be more to it than a giant box just for earrings. She pushed down on the center, causing a bunch of drawers to pop out where the small gold studs were. Fascinated, Marinette examined the small drawers individually, but quickly found that the drawers were similar to the main hub of the box. Empty.

What was the point of this? The box was empty, save for the earrings, which meant someone got this giant box just to give her these earrings. It seemed wasteful to her. Or maybe she was just upset that this giant box had so little in it, she felt led on.

She slowly turned the box and found a small slip of paper hidden in one of the drawers. Curious, she took it out and unfolded it. It had light elegant writing on it that read as such:

 _Marinette Dupain-Cheng,_

 _These earrings and the power they bestow are a gift to you. I will soon need the help of you and your soon to be partner. Please get acquainted with these earrings and their Kwami, I will be needing your help soon._

Marinette read the note several times. One thing was certain, this certtainly wasn't from her mother. She didn't exactly understand it, not fully. Kwami? Powers? Partner? None of it really seemed to apply to Marinette, she'd guss that the note was for someone else if it wasn't for her name written at the top of it. Why would someone want her help? She was a klutz. Who was this partner that was mentioned? She didn't have a partner. And what was a Kwami?

Maybe this was given to the wrong person. Maybe they just wrote the wrong name on the note and delivered it to the wrong person. It was what seemed most likely to her. That was the kind of luck she tended to have. Maybe she could ask her parents who delivered it, then she could return it, or at least ask some questions.

Marinette closed the box and slid it under her chaise. She thought about going back to her desk and trying to sketch some new designs, it would be a welcome distraction to get her mind away from Chloe. She got up to walk to her desk, but stopped herself when she heard some metal fall to the floor. She spun around to see that she had knocked the earrings onto the floor.

She bent over and picked them up, spinning them in her hand. The partner thing was weird, but there was one thing weirder about that note she had gotten. _Powers._ What did that mean? These things certainly didn't look powerful, they looked... well, they looked like earrings. What could be so powerful about earrings?

As if to answer her question, the earrings lit up with a bright pink light.

 **o0o**

"I am very disappointed in you Adrien," Gabriel said, staring at the picture on his wall, not turning to face his son.

"I know father," Adrien said, staring depressingly at his shoes, "I just... I just wanted to go to school... I wanted to be like a normal kid for once. Go to school, make friends, maybe..."

"That's enough Adrien," Gabriel said without turning around, "I have expressed my feelings towards you attending school several times, I am very displeased that you are making me repeat myself again."

Adrien continued to gaze at his shoes, "I'm sorry father."

Gabriel finally turned to face his son, "I want you to return to your room and think about what you have done. You and Natalie will work on your lessons later."

Adrien sighed, "yes sir." Gabriel turned back around to look at his painting once again. Adrien knew that this was his father's way of saying the conversation was over.

Adrien quickly glanced up at the painting, staring at the beautiful portrait of his mother. He quickly glanced back down at his shoes, feeling a bit disheartened just looking at the picture. Just looking at the picture caused tears to well up in his eyes, he quickly left the study before they actually started to fall out of his eyes.

He quickly returned to his, quote on quote, room. He had grown to hate this waste of space that he was forced to live in. To most people, it looked like a teenagers dream. There was rock climbing, video games, a computer with more monitors than necessary, a large window with a view that reminded Adrien that there was a giant city out there that he was never going to see, movies that showed more of the world than he could ever see, and a half pipe that was useless since Adrien didn't own a skateboard (his father had said it was too dangerous). Yes, while many people saw it as a paradise among teenagers rooms, Adrien saw it as his prison.

He hated it. He hated every bit of this room. No matter how much he changed it, no matter what he added, what he got rid of, this place still felt like a prison. And like anyone in prison, all Adrien wanted was to get out. And it frustrated him to no end.

He slumped down onto his couch, upset at his fathers choice. He never liked the restrictions his father had made. He had been like this ever since Adrien's mother... his mother... he didn't feel like thinking about it, he was already upset. His father was right about one thing, he needed to stop to think.

Maybe he should just watch some TV, or play some video games, anything to get his mind away from his father and school. He reached over to grab his TV remote, but stopped when he noticed a little black box on his table.

Adrien picked up the small box and looked at it. It was really small, it. Adrien didn't really notice anything else that was special about the box. It was rather weird. Why was this here? Who put it here? Maybe a gift from his father? No, scratch that, his father doesn't give gifts, and he wouldn't give anything in a box like this. Which brought him back to who put it here?

Maybe Natalie? She had been known to feel bad for Adrien whenever he got lectured by his father, plus, her and the gorilla are the only ones who had access to his room. He felt a certain warmth at the thought of her feeling bad for him, and rushed to see what it was.

As he opened the box, he was greeted with a small note at the top. Adrien picked it up and slowly opened it:

 _Adrien Agreste,_

 _This ring and the power it bestows is a gift to you. I will soon need the help of you and your soon to be partner. Please get acquainted with this ring and it's Kwami, I will be needing your help soon._

Definitely not from Natalie. Not only was the handwriting wrong (Adrien had seen her handwriting so often during lessons that he had memorized the style), but the note made no sense in the context that it was from Natalie. So who was it from? Maybe it was a practical joke from his father. Wait, no, not possible. His father had no humor.

The more Adrien thought about it, the weirder it got. For starters, what was this mention of powers? Adrien may jump at the idea of having powers, all those years of reading comics and watching anime made him want some, but there was no such thing. Next, what about the mention of a partner? Judging by the context of the note, Adrien hasn't met him or her yet. If it was to be believed, then he would likely meet them in the near future. Finally, what was a Kwami? The note said that he needed to get acquainted with it, but when he looked in the box, there was nothing that could be described as a Kwami. All that was in the box was a small black ring with a green cat paw on it.

Maybe there was more to the box. He picked up the ring and set it on the table, examining the box closer. It didn't have any secret compartments, no extra buttons, you couldn't even take out the padding on the bottom of the box. There was absolutely nowhere that this "kwami" could hide. Adrien closed the box and set it to the side. Clearly it was just that, a box. Nothing more, nothing less.

Adrien decided to move on and picked up the ring. Just like the box, the ring wasn't anything special. All the years that Adrien had spent modeling his father's jewelry collection had made him pretty adept at recognizing rare gems and metals, this ring contained neither of those. The metal seemed cheap, although Adrien couldn't identify the metal. It was one he had never seen before. The jewels that made the cat paw were the same. All of the materials were completely alien to him. They could be dirt cheep, they could be expensive, Adrien couldn't tell. There was only one thing he knew for certain, there was nothing special about this ring.

He was proven wrong when the ring filled the room with a bright green light.

 **o0o**

As quickly as the light had appeared, it vanished again. Marinette was once again alone in her room, blinking to try and focus her eyes again. The light was so bright it had nearly blinded her, it had caught her off guard so she couldn't shield her eyes. What even was it? All of a sudden the room was brighter than the sun. What had even caused it?

Did a light bulb freak out? Or maybe her monitor glitched? It was so weird and unexplainable to her. She couldn't find anything that could've made anything close to how bright that light was in her room.

At least, not until her eyes focused and rested on a small, floating, red and black creature.

"AH," Marinette screamed as she flew to her feet, trying to hide behind one of the support beams in her room, "HELP! IT'S A GIANT BUG! UH... A MOUSE? UH... A BUG-MOUSE!"

"Everything's okay," the small creature said with a bright smile, "don't be scared. It's..."

"AH," Marinette screamed again, "BUG-MOUSE TALKS!" She quickly grabbed whatever object she could get her hand on and threw it at the small creature.

"Listen Marinette," the small creature said as it flew around to dodge the random objects Marinette threw, "I know everything seems strange to you, but..." She was cut off by Marinette taking a glass and slamming it to the ground, trapping the small creature inside. The small creature looked confused for a second, but quickly got it's smile back, "okay, if that makes you feel safer."

Marinette examined the small creature in the glass, "what are you? and how do you know my name?"

"I'm a kwami," the small creature said, "and my name is Tikki. Just let me explain."

"This is too weird," Marinette said. She had to tell her parents, maybe they'd know what to do. She reached for the trap door with one hand, using the other to keep the glass in place so that the creature, Tikki if Marinette had heard right, didn't escape. "MOM," Marinette shouted down, slowly opening the trap door, "DAD!"

"Nonononono," Tikki said. She quickly flew through the side of the glass and hovered above Marinette's other hand that was resting on the trap door, "I'm your friend Marinette. You must trust me. You're the only one who can retrieve the miraculous."

Marinette looked at Tikki. The kwami's cheery smile had faded, now she looked extremely concerned. She was looking at Marinette with those giant blue puppy dog eyes, and Marinette could never resist puppy dog eyes.

She sighed, then slowly closed the trap door, "alright, I'll trust you."

Tikki quickly lit up with excitement and spun around in the air, "thank you. I'll explain quickly."

 **o0o**

Adrien had to have been sprinting around his room for at least 2 minutes now. He barely had 5 seconds to process the light before a small creature that called itself Plagg came into existence and started zooming around Adrien's room, trying to eat everything in sight. First his Foosball table, then his arcade machine, his DVDs and CDs, and finally his trophies. Plagg was chewing on Adrien's TV remote while Adrien climbed his rock wall. Adrien calculated in his head his trajectory before jumping towards his couch, landing on top of the small creature and catching him in his hands.

"What are you," Adrien said as he griped down on the small creature so it couldn't escape his grasp, this was the first time that Adrien had gotten a good look at Plagg. The small creature looked like a really small cat.

"Listen kid," Plagg said, looking little bit bored, "I'm a kwami, I grant powers. Yours is the power of destruction. Got it?"

Adrien honestly didn't understand and shook his head in response.

"Good," Plagg said, clearly ignoring Adrien, "now you got anything to eat? I'm starving."

"This is a joke right," Adrien said as he stood up, still gripping down on Plagg, "Natalie felt bad and decided to play a small prank to try and cheer me up." He started walking to the door, "haha, very funny."

"Woah," Plagg said, zipping out from between Adrien's fingers, "you can't tell anyone. Got it? TELL! NO! ONE!"

Plagg seemed very adamant about this, he almost looked angry at Adrien for merely suggesting the concept. "Alright," Adrien said, "I won't tell anyone."

"Good," Plagg said, "now, about that food."

 **o0o**

"Explain this to me one more time," Marinette said as she put the earrings on. As she looked at her reflection, she could see that the earrings had lost their red and had become completely black.

"The Ladybug earrings grant you powers," Tikki said, "they grant you enhanced agility, strength, and improves your instincts."

"Alright," Marinette said, "and what about this 'charm' thing you mentioned."

"The lucky charm," Tikki said, "it's your secret super power."

Marinette sighed, "Tikki, I think that this is a mistake. The only super power I could have is super clumsiness or awkwardness." Marinette suddenly lit up with an idea, "I know, you could ask Alya. She's my friend. She should know, at least I think she would. She loves super heroes and stuff like this, I'm sure she would be better at this than..."

"Marinette," Tikki said, "you were the one chosen to bear these earrings, you are the new Ladybug."

"But why was I chosen," Marinette said, "Paris is peaceful, it doesn't need a superhero. Why'd you come to me?"

Tikki went silent for a while. The Kwami seemed to have to ponder the question.

"Tikki?"

"I can only tell you what I have been told," Tikki said, "and that is not much."

Marinette nodded. Tikki thought a bit before speaking again, "the earrings that you are currently wearing are called a miraculous. There are many of them, each with a different power. Creation, destruction, illusion, and many more."

"Okay," Marinette said, "so these things are powerful, but this doesn't explain why you need my help?"

"They are all missing," Tikki said, "either stolen or lost to time."

"Is that what you meant when you said I was the only one who can retrieve them?"

Tikki nodded, "recently one has resurfaced, the butterfly. It was one that was stolen, which may mean that the user will use it to try and find more. It is one of the most powerful with the ability to give others powers. If someone were to use it, they could create villains and monsters to attack Paris."

"and how am I supposed to stop it?"

"You will need to find their akumatized object, smash it, and purify it."

"Not about that," Marinette corrected, "what am I supposed to do about this butterfly miraculous thing?"

"You will need to retrieve it," Tikki said, "you were chosen to do so."

"But I'm not sure about this," Marinette said, "don't you think you could've found someone more qualified?"

"Marinette," Tikki said, "you were chosen, and I trust you. You have the creativity, and now you'll have the power, all you have to do is say 'Spots On'."

"Spots On?" Marinette said. Before Marinette could ask anymore questions, Tikki soared into the earrings. Another bright flash lit up the room and faded in an instant. Once Marinette could see again, she quickly noticed Tikki was gone.

"Tikki?" Marinette said, looking around for the small kwami, "Tikki? Where'd you go?" She kept spinning around, searching every inch of her room for Tikki. She continued to search, up until she spun and caught her reflection in the mirror. Her outfit had completely changed.

For starters, her earrings had changed back to their original colors. She was wearing a black leather jacket over a black and red suit. She had a bright red scarf around her neck that went over her shoulder and down to her waist. The leggings were red with black spots that were torn above the knees and black boots. A small red string formed a belt around her waste with a small disc with the same pattern as her earrings hanging off the side. She was wearing a red mask with black spots in a symmetrical pattern and her hair had been pulled back into a ponytail.

"AH," Marinette screamed as she looked in the mirror, trying to come to terms that the reflection was her own. She looked like a completely different person now. "Tikki," Marinette said, "alright, I'm done now, I'd like my old clothes back."

The kwami didn't respond. There was complete silence. "Tikki," Marinette said, sounding a little more concerned, "this isn't funny. Please change me back now." Still no response.

Marinette had officially gone to freak out mode. She was now in a ridiculous outfit with no idea how to get out of it. She should've had Tikki write down the instructions to how these work, now she was stuck like this until she figured out how to change back. At the very least, no one was around to see her.

"Marinette," Sabine called from downstairs, "is that you?"

Just her luck. Marinette couldn't let her mom see her like this, she didn't want anyone to see her like this, but particularly not her mom. Since she came in through the back, her parents didn't know she was home, so she could probably slip up to her balcony undetected, which was what she did. Marinette jumped up to her bed, not bothering to use her ladder, and jumping up to the balcony, not bothering to using the ladder there either. She was in such a hurry to get out of her room to avoid her mother, she didn't even notice the inhuman jumps that she was making.

Once she was up on her balcony, she closed the door behind her and looked down as her mom entered the room below. She noticed her mother looking around the room below. Marinette thought that she was in the clear, upi until she saw her mom start to climb the ladder to her bed. Marinette freaked out again, it was clear that her mother was coming up to see if Marinette was on her balcony.

Marinette could barely keep her head straight. She needed to find a place where no one could see her, where she could hide out until she figured out how to get her normal clothes back. But first, she needed to get away from her mother, she would be the worst person to see her in some sort of weird super suit. She needed to think fast and figure out how to get away. Marinette looked up to the area above her balcony where the cell reception tower was. Marinette quickly leaped up the wall and ran up it until she was on top of the building. She ran past the tower and hid behind it so that she was out of sight when her mother came up. She waited patiently as she heard her mom open the door, call Marinette's name a few times, then went back down into the room.

Marinette let out a sigh of relief as she slid down on the reception tower and sat on the floor. She ran through everything that just happened, it all went by so fast that she didn't have time to process it as she went along. She got into some weird suit, then ran to escae her mother, and finally jumped on top of her roof. It was when she thought about it that she finally realized that she had jumped up impossible heights with minimal efforts.

Marinette looked down at her hands, looked down at her body. After realizing what she had just done, it made her own body seem foreign to her. The idea that she had jumped that high without trying it was... it was... a bit exhilarating! It got the blood pumping through Marinette's veins. She was hesitant about the suit and the powers, but now she wanted to try them out a bit more.

 _Tikki said that I had enhanced agility,_ Marinette thought to herself as she stood back up, _I guess now's as good a time as ever to test that._ She backed up against the reception tower until her back was pressed against it. She looked at the long stretch of roof in front of her, then ran off as fast as she could muster.

She reached the end and jumped down to the building below, running along it and jumping up to another building. She kept doing this, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, having fun as she ran.

Eventually, she came across a large street that separated her and her path. While most people would be deterred, Marinette sped up. She ran as fast as she could towards the edge. When she finally reached the edge, she kicked off as hard as she could to jump to the other building across the street.

Five seconds. Five seconds was how long Marinette was in the air. Five seconds with her feet off the ground, five seconds of the wind blowing through her hair, five seconds where Marinette felt more alive than she ever had in her entire life. At the end of those five seconds, Marinette landed hard on the other rooftop, instinctively going into a roll to cushion her fall.

"Woah," Marinette said as she rolled onto her feet. She quickly spun around stared at the distance she had just jumped.

Marinette walked to the edge of the roof and looked over to see how high she was. She looked across the way and saw how far she had jumped. She couldn't believe any of it. The thought that she had jumped that far, jumped that high, it was baffling. She could barely believe it.

"Nice jump," someone said behind her. Marinette quickly spun around, coming face to face with a tall boy blonde boy in a black hoodie leaning onto a silver stick.

"Gotta admit," he said, "that was pretty amazing. Even I needed to vault in order to jump over the street like that"

Marinette jumped back in surprise, turning away so that this guy couldn't see her in this ridiculous suit. "W-who are you," Marinette stuttered out, "How'd you get up here?"

"I guess it would be rude not to introduce myself," he said, walking around so he was in front of Marinette, "seeing as how we're going to be working together and all." He put a hand on his chin and hummed in thought, "the name's...umm... Chat Noir, yeah that sounds good." He did a slight bow, "the name's Chat Noir, and it looks like we're partners from here on out."

 **o0o**

"So run this by me one more time," Adrien said, watching the small black cat munch down on the disgusting smelling cheese, "and this time, without a full mouth."

Plagg swallowed a huge bit of cheese then spoke slowly, "that ring you got, it's called a miraculous. There are a lot of them, and now they're all missing. So now, you and someone else have to get them back. Got it?"

Before Adrien could answer, Plagg zipped off into the bathroom, likely to cause more chaos. "Alright," Adrien said, "let's say I do agree, what now? I mean I can't go out. I'm stuck here. What good is a superhero who can't even leave his own room."

"No good," Plagg said as he rolled back in to the room on a roll of toilet paper, unraveling it as he went, "but that's all going to change soon. If you're willing to change, that is."

Adrien opened his hand and looked at the ring. He would have like he always dreamed, he would have a partner that he could spark a friendship with, and he could have freedom away from his father. He had to admit, the last one rang out the most in his mind.

"Alright," Adrien said. He slipped the silver ring onto his finger, turning his hand so he could see how it looked.

"Claws out," Plagg said as he poked his head out in of a toilet paper tube, "say that to transform."

"Alright," Adrien said, sticking out his fist, "Plagg, Claws Out!"

"WAIT," Plagg yelled as he was sucked into the ring, "I WASN'T DONE EXPLAINING!"

Plagg was sucked into the ring, creating another bright flash in the room. In an instant, Adrien's normal clothes had disappeared changing into an awesome suit. He had a black hoodie with stylized green lines all over it and two belts hanging off from the side, linking in the back to make a long leather tail. He had a long silver stick, almost like a combination of a staff and a bat. He had black jeans torn around the knees. Black sneakers with green laces with metallic plates over the toes. He had cat ears on top of the hood and a bandanna covering his mouth. A small black mask with a small bit of face paint at the bottom of it. Although, the coolest part about his new get up was the fact that his eyes were completely different, looking like cat's eyes.

Adrien couldn't help but admire how awesome he looked. He didn't look like one of those standard superheroes, the ones in the cheap spandex suits. No, he looked like one of those self made heroes, the kind that make their own suit. And he looked good in it.

"Awesome," Adrien said once he was done admiring his new look, "alright Plagg, how do these powers work?" There was no answer. "Plagg?" Still nothing. Adrien quickly came to the conclusion that Plagg couldn't hear him, or at the very least, Adrien couldn't hear Plagg.

"Alright," Adrien said, "I guess I'll figure it out on my own." Adrien walked up to his window and hopped up to the higher up ones without an issue. "Super jump, check." He pushed his window open and jumped out, landing on top of the wall that bordered his house.

"Sayonara prison," Adrien said towards his house. He turned around and looked at Paris, "hello world." He leaped off the wall with extreme force, flying over the street and taking off in a full sprint. He just wanted to test these powers out now, push himself to the limits. If it was a dream, he didn't want to wake up. He wanted to explore every part of it. He leaped from rooftop to rooftop, never missing a beat. He only finally stopped when he came to a large street, he was pretty sure he couldn't make that jump even with his powers.

He was a bit disappointed, he didn't like finding some type of limit to his powers so soon. He grunted and sat down, letting out a huff. As he sat down, he heard a small clank behind him. He turned around and saw that the stick on his back had hit the ground. He took it off his back and examined it. If Adrien had to guess, it was some type of weapon. It didn't seem that special, just a silver stick with a green cat paw and green lines circling the edges. It was just a stick

Adrien kept messing with the stick until his thumb brushed over the cat paw. Once he hit the cat paw, the stick extended to almost double it's length. Adrien freaked out as he did so, dropping the stick. He stared at it in shock for a second before picking it up again. He pressed the cat paw again, making it shrink down to the size of a remote.

"My own Power Pole," Adrien said, "awesome." He extended the staff back to it's original size and put it back on his back. He stood up and stared at his current obstacle. He was a bit upset that he had to turn around so soon... or did he?

Adrien stared down his obstacle, spinning his stick at his side. He backed up to the other end of the roof. "Always wanted to try pole vault," Adrien said to himself, "dad always said it was too dangerous." He planted his foot on the edge of the roof opposite of the street, "but today isn't about listening to him."

Adrien took off towards the street, stick in hand. Once he finally reached the edge, he planted his stick into the lip of the roof and extended it. He rose into the air and gently landed on top of the building on the other side of the street. He shortened his staff back to it's original size and spun it in his hand again.

"Okay," Adrien said as he put his stick back on his back, "this is probably the best weapon ever." He was ready to take off again but caught sight of something that demanded his immediate attention.

A girl was running full sprint to the edge of a rooftop. "NO," Adrien yelled, going into a full sprint and pulling his staff off his back. He was meant to be a big hero, right? Well if he was, he couldn't let some girl jump off the roof into the street. He figured he could jump after her, catch her, and then quickly use his staff to ascend back to the rooftops before they hit the ground. He was about to launch himself off the roof, but stopped himself when the girl did the same.

She soared through the air for a couple seconds before landing on the other side of the street and tucking into a roll. "Woah," Adrien said under his breath. He was a bit awestruck by how the girl flew through the air like that. He quickly came to the most obvious conclusion that he could think of. If this girl could jump like this, then she must be the partner that he had been told about. He quickly ran up to where the girl was, going unnoticed because the girl was looking over the edge. He also was pretty sure that he had some sort of cat like stealth given to him by Plagg.

He placed his stick on the roof and gently leaned on it, trying to look cool for her first impression of him. "Nice jump," Adrien said.

The girl quickly jumped in surprise and turned to face Adrien. "Gotta admit,"he continued, "that was pretty amazing. Even I had to vault in order to jump across the street like that."

She quickly turned around to face the other way. Was she shunning him? Did he somehow make a bad first impression? What was bad about it? He had just met his partner and he's already screwing it up.

"W-who are you," She said, crossing her arms over her chest, "how'd you get up here?"

Oh. OOOOOOOOH. That's what the problem was. Some random stranger just came up to them and starting talking to each other like they've been friends for ages. It probably didn't help that they were on top of a roof that isn't normally open to the public, of course she was caught off guard that someone else was up here.

Adrien decided that it would be best if he tried to backpedal a bit. "I guess it would be rude not to introduce myself seeing as how we're going to be working together and all," Adrien said, stepping in front of her so he could speak to her face, not wanting to introduce himself to someone's back, "the name's... um..."

It was at that moment Adrien realized something. He didn't have a cool super hero name. While he was going to be working with this girl, it was possible that he didn't want her to know his name. He is well known, it could affect their relationship and how they work together before they even start working together. He needed a moniker to go by, at least for now. He also needed it to be cool. but also fitting of his new persona. Something simple, something fitting, something like...

"Chat Noir," Adrien said, "yeah, that's pretty good." Adrien did a bow simply in an attempt to be a gentleman, "the name's Chat Noir, and it looks like we're partners from here on out."

Marinette looked at the boy with curiosity. She had forgotten about how the note mentioned a partner. He looked a bit like a criminal with the hoodie and bandanna. Then again, Marinette had to admit she looked a bit like a punk herself at the moment.

"What about you," Chat said, standing up straight.

Marinette tilted her head, "what do you mean?"

"Your name," Chat said, puling the bandanna off his face so Marinette could see him a bit better, "I told you mine, it's only right that I know yours."

"Right," Marinette said, "I'm Mari...Umm..." She nearly gave away her real name. That might not be the best idea, especially since her new partner didn't trust her with his real name. It might be better to come up with a fake the way he did. What was it Tikki had said earlier, that Marinette was the next...

"Ladybug," she quickly blurted out. Not the best name she could've come up with, but better than nothing.

"Alright Ladybug," Chat said, extending out his hand, "nice to meet you."

Ladybug gave him a bright smile and took his hand, "nice to meet you too Chat Noir." Ladybug had to admit, he at least seemed nice. Maybe working with him could be fun.

"I assume you were testing out your powers the same way I was," Chat said, "testing your limits, seeing how high you can jump, how fast you can run, what your weapon can do."

"Weapon," Ladybug said, tilting her head in confusion, "what weapon?"

"Your weapon," Chat said as he took the stick he was leaning on and spinning it in his hand, "like this."

"I don't think I got one of those," Ladybug said as she checked her person, "maybe you're the only one with a weapon?"

"Or maybe it's on your belt," Chat said, pointing to the small disc that was on her belt.

Ladybug hadn't thought about the small disc. When she saw it, she honestly thought it was decorative. Ladybug grabbed the disc and, sure enough, it clicked off her belt. She held the small disc in her hand examining it. As she looked at it, she found a small ring with a string attached to it. It was then that she realized what the disc was.

She slipped her ring finger into the ring and dropped the small disc, letting it spin on the string at her side. "A yo-yo," Ladybug said, "yep, this is a real threatening weapon."

"On the outside," Chat said, "probably not." He then brushed his finger over the cat paw on his staff, causing it to extend upwards, "but magic makes everything a bit unordinary."

"Woah," Ladybug said, "that's cool." Ladybug looked at her yo-yo, curiosity peaking. Now she had to test this thing out. She looked up at the top of the stick high up in the air and threw her yo-yo at it. It flew through the air, the string extending way longer than should be capable and wrapped around the top of the staff.

"Yours is cool too," Chat said as he looked up at the yo-yo in the air. He shrunk his staff as Ladybug pulled her yo-yo back to her.

"So what now," Chat said, "we're supposed to be heroes, right? Well what do we do if no one needs saving?"

"We're supposed to look for the other miraculous," Ladybug said, "that's what I was told."

"Alright," Chat said, punching his hand into his palm, "then let's get looking."

"Actually," Ladybug said, "I... I'm not sure..."

"I'm not sure we'll find them either," Chat cut off, "but we were trusted to find them. I'm sure if we work together, we'll eventually find one."

"No," Ladybug said, "it's not that. It's... I'm..."

Before she could say anything, the ears on Chat's hoodie twitched. Ladybug noticed the small motion and couldn't help but focus on the ears. Were they part of his head?

"Something's up," Chat said, moving his ears around trying to locate the sound, "it sounds like... some kind of trouble."

Ladybug tensed up again, "what... what kind of trouble?"

"Not sure," Chat said, "all I hear is some kind of alarms. Robbery if I had to guess."

Ladybug tensed up a little more, "w-what are we gonna do?"

"We have to help," Chat said, "if there's some kind of robbery. Then we have to stop it... right?"

"Why are you asking me," Ladybug said, "I'm as new to this hero thing as you are."

"Well we should help," Chat said, "that's what heroes do... right?"

"Stop asking me!"

"Yeah," Chat said confidently, "that is what heroes do, which means that's what we do."

"Wait," Ladybug said, but Chat ran off before she could stop him. She didn't follow for a second, not quite sure about following him, but determined that he might need her help. She couldn't let him run into danger alone, he could get hurt or worse.

Ladybug took off after Chat Noir, running as fast as she could to catch up with him. After a short burst, Ladybug was running right alongside her partner.

"What took you so long," Chat said with a smirk.

"I was debating running after you," Ladybug said, "I was debating whether you could handle it on your own or not."

"Well, at least you decided to help," Chat said, "who knows, without you I could've lost one of my nine lives."

"Then it's a good thing I showed up," Ladybug said, giving her own smile. They both ran alongside each other, coming to a halt in front of the Louvre. They showed up just in time to see a large black blob in the shape of a woman throw around a couple of men dressed in black.

"HOW DARE YOU TAINT THIS ART BY EVEN THINKING IT IS YOURS," the blob yelled, "I, INKESS, WILL SHOW YOU DIFFERENT!"

Ladybug shivered a bit, "what is that thing?"

"If I had to guess," Chat said as he pulled his bandanna bake over his face, "i'd say it's our first super villain." He pulled his stick off his back and spun it at his side, "which means we're gonna have to take it down." He jumped up into the air air with staff in hand, ready to strike the giant blob.

"CHAT WAIT," Ladybug yelled, sticking her arm out as if to grab her ally even though he was already to far away.

Chat fell down on top of the creature hitting it hard in the head with his stick, but the stick just sank through the creature's head and into it's body. Chat tried to pull his stick out, but it was stuck inside the monster's body.

"What the..." Chat said as he struggled to pull the stick out. As he did so, the monster's head spun around to look at Chat.

"You dare to strike the Inkess," she said, staring at chat with cold white eyes.

"Uh... yeah," Chat said, "although I thought I'd actually be able to hit you."

In an instant, a hand jutted out from the monsters back and wrapped around Chat's body. It slid over to the side until the hand was at the end of the creature's arm. She spun her head around again until she was staring at Chat again.

"Judging by your... horrible attire, I assume you are with these swines," the creature, Inkess, said, "one who lacks culture and has no care for art."

"No," Chat said, "but I don't like some monster wrecking my city."

"Wrecking," She said, "I am doing this city a favor."

"Yeah right," Chat said, "and I'm King Louis."

"You're annoying," Inkess said. She threw Chat against the large pyramid, causing several of the glass panels to break.

Ladybug couldn't help but watch as her partner crashed through the glass. She didn't know what to do, she had never been in a situation like this. She was nervous, scared. She knew that she could screw this up the way she screwed so many things up. She couldn't help. She couldn't help Chat. She couldn't help the people that the women was attacking. She couldn't help Alya... ALYA!?

Ladybug caught eye of the red headed girl behind Inkess. She had her phone out, filming the whole fight. Why was she here? How'd she get here? Most importantly, why was she not running away? Marinette's newest friend had made her way to the Louvre and she was staring at the face of danger through a phone camera lens.

"HEY PARTNER," Chat yelled. Marinette's attention was drawn back to her partner. He was being held by Inkess tightly, she could see the ink slowly crawling over and covering his body. "I COULD USE A LITTLE HEL..." he was cut off by the ink slowly crawling over his mouth, muffling his voice. She could see bubbles of air pop out from where the ink covered his mouth.

Ladybug watched the scene in terror. Strangers were under attack by a monster, her partner was being choked by said monster, and her friend, her ONLY friend was watching, refusing to run away and get to safety. It was only a matter of time before the monster turned against her too. Ladybug should do something, she needed to do something, she WAS going to do something.

The look of fear and terror in her eyes was gone, replaced with one of determination and readiness. She quickly unclipped her yo-yo and jumped at Inkess, throwing her weapon as hard as she could. The yo-yo spun around her hand and sunk deep into the ink until it was wrapped around something solid. She slid past the monster and pulled hard, forcing Chat Noir through the ink and out of the monster's hand.

Chat let out a cough, pulling his bandanna off to breath, "thanks. What took you so long?"

"I barely know you," Ladybug said, "I had to debate if I should risk my life to save one of your nine."

"Glad you decided I'm worth the effort," Chat said as he pulled his bandanna back over his face, "so you got any plans?"

"No," Ladybug said, "but if I had to guess, I'd say that monster was created by another miraculous user. My kwami told me about how there's one that can be used to give others powers."

"So how do we stop it?"

"It has an object, something we need to destroy in order to turn them back to normal."

"Destroy, huh," Chat said, looking at his hand, "I think I can handle that." He barred his claws and shouted out, "CATACLYSM!" Ladybug watched in awe as a small black ball formed in her partner's hand and he crushed it to engulf his hand in a dark aura.

"Pretty cool right," Chat said as he rolled his fingers, "my kwami said I have the power to destroy anything I touch."

He rushed to press his hand against the nearest thing he could find. "WAIT," Ladybug yelled, but it was too late. Chat brushed his fingers against the closest thing to him, causing it to crumble to dust.

"Awesome," Chat said, looking at his own hand in awe, "now for this Inkess." He charged at the monster full force. He ran up to her and shoved his hand against the inky figure, surprised when he saw it had no effect. "Oh," Chat said with a nervous laugh, "I guess I only get one shot."

Inkess looked at him, if her face had more than eyes, Chat was sure that her expression would be unamused. She lazily backhanded him, sending him flying through the air past Ladybug.

"Why would you waste your power like that," Ladybug said, "didn't your kwami explain anything to you?"

"Um... I may have gotten a bit ahead of myself," Chat said, "I didn't exactly give him a chance to explain everything."

"Well, now you only have five minutes before you change back," Ladybug said. Thinking about it, she kinda wished that she had thought about that when she wanted to transform back, but now wasn't the time for that.

"Great," Chat said, "anything else I should know?"

"Besides the fact that you destroyed several pieces of priceless art," Ladybug said, gesturing to the pile of rubble that had formed by Chat's cataclysm.

"Oh," Chat said, "Oops."

"HOW DARE YOU," Inkess shouted, "THOSE PIECES WERE PRICELESS, FORGED BY THE GREAT MASTERS THEMSELVES!"

"I feel like now's a bad time to tell her art isn't forged," Chat said.

"Well, it can be," Ladybug said, "but it makes it less priceless and more worthless."

"SHUT UP," Inkess shouted, "YOU FOOLS SHALL SUFFER FOR YOUR INSO..."

A purple mark appeared right in front of her face, one in the shape of a butterfly. She immediately went silent and turned back towards the scrap Chat had made. "As you command,"she said as she stared at the pile of scrap. Ladybug and Chat Noir looked at each other, confused by the scenario. Both of them looked at the small pile of ash with curiosity. Chat didn't notice what was special, but Ladybug certainly did. At the top of the ash was two small black pieces of jewelry, barely noticeable as they blended with the black ash that was the remnants of the paintings destroyed by Chat's cataclysm. They were a strange design, looking almost like goat horns.

Ladybug knew that was what Inkess was interested in, it was the only thing remaining among the pile of ash, but she had no idea why. They didn't look that interesting, but they certainly were interesting to the ink monster.

"You are lucky children," Inkess hissed, not taking her eyes off the jewels, "my master would prefer to avoid a fight, so I'll take those jewels and leave." She extended her inky hand out to retrieve the jewels, but as her hand drew closer, she was surprised when a red figure swooped by and snatched the two jewels away.

"Sorry," Ladybug said, putting the two jewels in her jacket pocket, "finders keepers." She didn't know who this master was, but he or she was clearly evil. She didn't know what these jewels were, but she knew that if Inkess wanted them, then Ladybug couldn't let her have them.

"GIVE THOSE HERE CHILD," Inkess yelled, "THOSE ARE NOT YOURS!"

"I don't think their yours either," Ladybug yelled, making sure the jewels were secure before taking her hand out of her pocket.

Inkess made her hand grow to a massive size before slamming it down where Ladybug was, but the red and black hero moved out of the way.

"Nice going bug," Chat said as he ran beside her, "she was going to leave us alone and you decided to not let her."

"Our job is to fix her," Ladybug said, "not let her get away. I don't know what these jewels are, but if she wants them, then we can't let her have them."

"Fair enough," Chat said, taking his stick and holding it like a bat, "so you got a plan?"

"One," Ladybug said, tossing her yo-yo a bit, "remember, you're not the only one with a special power, remember." She threw her yo-yo in the air with a shout of her own, "LUCKY CHARM!"

Her yo-yo opened up and released a flurry of ladybugs which came together to form a large red bowl with black spots. Ladybug caught the object and looked at it, completely confused.

"I was expecting some cool weapon or something," Chat said, "what exactly are we supposed to do with that."

"I was told I'd need to figure it out," Ladybug said, "figure out how to use it in a way that can stop the monster."

"Alright," Chat said, grabbing his partner and tackling her out of the way so that she didn't get hit by Inkess, "you might want to figure it out fast."

Ladybug nodded. She quickly scanned her surroundings to try and come up with something. There was the pyramid, the buildings around them, the fountains that were... THE FOUNTAINS. Ladybug had a major moment of realization. Inkess was made of ink, and ink could be washed away.

"Chat, I need you to find the water main to the fountains and turn it up all the way," Ladybug said.

"What," Chat said tilting his head, "how will that help?"

"Trust me," Ladybug said. As she did so, a small beep came from both their miraculous'. The first spot disappeared on Ladybug's earrings, the second paw pad on Chat's ring. "Do it and do it quick," Ladybug said, "I'll kept inky busy."

Chat was a bit confused, but could tell she had a plan. "Alright," Chat said, "consider it done."

He quickly took off and began his search for the water main.

"Your partner ran off," Inkess said as she got closer to Ladybug, "you're all alone with no chance. And I don't think you'll beat me with just a bowl. Give up now and give me what I want."

"No thanks," Ladybug said, "kitty's just doing what I told him to."

"Very well," Inkess said, "but know that you asked for this." She stretched out her arm to try and grab her opponent, but Ladybug jumped out of the way.

 _Just keep her busy,_ Ladybug thought to herself, _just keep her busy. Just buy Chat enough time._ She leaped back and landed in one of the large, triangular fountains around the pyramid. She watched as Inkess inched closer, but came to a halt at the edge of the fountain. Ladybug let out a small smirk, knowing her suspicion was confirmed.

"What's the matter," Ladybug said, mockingly kicking the water, "worried you'll ruin your hair?"

Inkess let out a sound that was a mixture of a hiss and a growl, "I don't need to get close to destroy you." She extended her arms out to their full length, causing an uncountable number of small arms to form out of her chest, each ending with a fist aimed at Ladybug.

The hero's eyes widened with surprise before her instincts took over. She jumped and dodged, trying not to be hit by any of them. She moved quickly, jumping over the arms one after another to avoid getting hit. They came one after another, coming at her almost endlessly. She could barely keep up. In fact, she couldn't keep up at all. She just kept moving in order to avoid as many blows as she could, kept dodging until...

The inky fist hit her right in the gut, sending her reeling through the air. She hit the ground hard, landing in the center with a large splash in the water. She tried to push herself back up, but was smacked down when all the hands form her chest formed together into one giant hand and smacked Ladybug into the ground.

"I didn't want a fight," Inkess said, "know that now you've lost. You're only weapon is a bowl, your partner left, and you have no chance. I recommend giving up."

Ladybug tried to push herself up again, but was smacked down once again. She wasn't gonna be able to get anywhere with Inkess repeatedly smacking her like this. Ladybug had no chance like this, no possibility of victory unless Chat...

Then she heard it. Small and quiet, but audible enough to hear it. In her ears she heard it loud and clear. She heard her chance.

She grabbed the bowl and rolled on the ground until she was right over the nozzle of the fountain. "You're wrong," Ladybug said, putting the bowl over the nozzle, "my partner came through, this bowl is your downfall, and the only one without a chance is you." As soon as her sentence finished, the nozzle burst to life. A flood of water burst out, going into the bowl and ricocheted towards the black ink monster

Inkess could barely move before she was hit with a giant gush of water with full force, washing away her body. Ladybug would adjust the angle of the bowl to move the water stream around and make sure her opponent was completely washed away. Finally, the giant spurt ended, and all that was left was a giant puddle of ink, occasionally shifting but unable to reform.

"That was amazing," someone called from nearby. Ladybug turned to see Chat Noir standing not far away. "I got back just in time, that was brilliant."

"Yeah," Ladybug said as she walked over to the black puddle that marked what remained of Inkess, "it was just some quick thinking." She scanned over it really quick, finding what she was looking for. sticking out among the puddle was a small paint brush. Ladybug walked over to it and stomped down on it to smash it with all her force. Once it was smashed, a small black butterfly with purple markings appeared from the splinters.

"Bye bye little butterfly," Ladybug said as the small butterfly took off into the air. As soon as the butterfly was out of sight, a bunch of bubbly black smoke appeared. Once it cleared, the black ink had disappeared, leaving only a young woman in an artist's smock on the ground.

"Where... where am I," the young girl said.

"Good job kitty," Ladybug said, sticking out her fist. She closed her eyes and let out a bright smile

Chat Noir almost couldn't take it. The way she knew exactly what to do, the adorable smile, the way she called him 'kitty'. This girl was amazing and he knew one thing for certain, this kitten was smitten. He was so happy that he had the bandanna, otherwise she might be able to see the blush he so obviously had right now. "Y-yeah," he said, stuttering over his words since now he was a bit nervous, "you too."

He put his fist against hers. "Pound it," they said simultaneously. As they did so, both their miraculous beeped. Chat was down to his last paw pad, Ladybug had two spots left.

"We better get going," Ladybug said, "I like you, but I'm not sure if I trust you with who I am."

"Yeah," Chat said, "besides, I don't think you could resis..."

"YOU TWO," someone yelled. Both turned to see Alya running up to them. Alya looked at them, still filming. "Who are you," she said, "why did you fight that heroic monster? Are you working with those criminals that were trying to rob the museum?"

"Rob?" Chat said.

"Criminals?" Ladybug said, "no, we're not criminals, we're..."

"We don't have time," Chat cut off with a whisper, "we have to get out of here before our time runs out."

"But... we can't let people think..."

"We don't have a choice," Chat whispered, "if they think we're criminals, imagine how bad it'll be if they find out who we are."

Ladybug hated to admit it, "alright." Both of them took off full speed, using their weapons to get up to the rooftops.

"WAIT," Alya yelled as the heroes ran off. She tried to run after them, but stopped herself in her tracks. There was no way that she could catch up to those two, they clearly had some sort of super powers.

She trudged her feet on the ground, feeling defeated about losing her big scoop. As she trudged, she accidentally kicked something She looked down and noticed some small black pieces of jewelry, strange ones shaped like ram horns. Wasn't this what that girl in red had stolen? It must have fallen out of her pocket when she was fighting.

"I guess I better return these," Alya said, picking up the small pieces of jewelry. She took them in her hand and slowly walked over to the museum.

 **o0o**

Marinette didn't hear the story until later. Apparently, those men in black were thieves, trying to rob the museum in broad daylight. The monster that her and Chat Noir stopped was actually trying to stop the criminals. Because they stopped the hero of the situation, and because Chat accidentally destroyed a bunch of the paintings that were being stolen, they were branded as the villains in that scenario.

Marinette banged her head against the table as the news report replayed the footage of her and Chat fighting Inkess again (they seemed to focus a lot on Chat destroying the paintings.

"It's okay Marinette," Tikki said, gently rubbing her tiny paw against Marinette's cheek in a comforting manner, "it was your first run. While it wasn't perfect, you still did amazing."

"It was far from perfect," Marinette said, "I got branded as a villain, I destroyed a bunch of paintings..."

"Technically Chat Noir did that," Tikki cut in

"That doesn't make it any better," Marinette said, "we just tried to help, now we're the ones deemed the bad guys."

"It'll be okay Marinette," Tikki said, "it'll be fine. You are still new to this, but I'm sure you'll get..." Tikki froze up as she stared at the screen.

Marinette lifted her head and stared at the screen. They had moved on from the fight and on towards what was found afterwards. The small black goat horn pieces were shown. "I saw those earlier," Marinette said, "they were strange, I could... kinda sense something weird about them. I got a strange feeling the second I saw them above the ash of the paintings that Chat destroyed. Is that weird?"

"Not at all," Tikki said, "it's logical that those would have a strange aura to them, and it makes sense that they weren't destroyed since they're indestructible."

"What do you mean," Marinette said, "what are they?"

"They are the goat miraculous," Tikki said, "lost in Italy during the renaissance period. It appears an artist hid them away inside a painting."

"That's a miraculous," Marinette said, pointing at the goat horn jewelry on the screen, "that's what I'm supposed to be looking for?" Tikki nodded. Marinette leaned back in her chair, put her hands over her face, and let out a loud groan, "the one thing I was meant to look for and I couldn't even get it. I'm such a screw up."

"You're not a screw up Marinette," Tikki said, "you didn't know. You still defeated Inkess and purified her akuma. You saved..."

"Wait, akuma?" Marinette said, "what's an akuma?"

"The small black butterfly that appeared when you crushed her object," Tikki said, "you did purify it, didn't you?" Marinette shook her head. Tikki's eyes went wide, "Marinette, you need to retrieve the goat miraculous now, at whatever cost."

"What, why?"

"Because if you don't retrieve it and hide it, then Inkess could easily get her hands on it, and then it would belong to whoever holds the butterfly miraculous."

 **o0o**

"So there are more miraculous in Paris," the figure said from the shadows, "not only the Ladybug and Black Cat miraculous', but also the goat. And to my benefit, Paris believes that they are the villains. I figured that if I created akumas, then it would draw out the heroes, but I never figured it could work out in my favor like this Perhaps I could use this." He held out his cane, the small black butterfly landing on the end and being absorbed into the small glass dome on the top, "you did well my akuma, and soon, I will need you again."

"Paris has deemed you as it's new villains Ladybug and Chat Noir," the shadow said, "and soon it will deem me their hero. They will fear you, demanding your head on a platter, but soon they will cheer for your defeat at the hands of Hawkmoth."

 **CHAPTER 1 END**


	2. Chapter 2: The Blackguard

**CHAPTER 2: THE BLACKGUARD**

Marinette could barely fathom the mistake she made. Actually, she couldn't fathom the _mistakes_ she made. She knew she wasn't right for this hero thing, she knew that she would screw up, and now all of Paris was in danger. She failed to purify this... Akuma, Marinette was pretty sure that's what Tikki had called it, and now Paris was in more danger than before.

The news had hit fast, the second more and more Inkess' appeared, dormant for now, but ready to strike if the original Inkess managed to get angry enough or upset enough or experienced any kind of negative emotion.

Inkess' had begun to appear all over Paris, each one taking the place of a civilian in Paris. A man at the Eiffel Tower, a woman at the Arc de Triumphe, a girl at Grand Palais, and many more all across Paris. At the moment, they were dormant, but that just meant that people were trapped in that form and couldn't move.

"It's okay Marinette," Tikki said, rubbing a gentle paw against Marinette's cheek, "you'll retrieve the akuma and purify it next time."

"You don't get it Tikki," Marinette said as she got up and paced around her room, "I'm not cut out to be a superhero, I'm only going to keep making mistakes."

"You only made one," Tikki said, "and it's one you can fix."

"What about Paris thinking I'm a criminal," Marinette said, "what about not retrieving the Ram Miraculous, the one thing I needed to retrieve."

"Alright," Tikki said, "you're right, but you still did good, and you'll be better for next time."

"No I won't," Marinette said, cupping her face in her hands, "all I'm going to do is screw up again. At this rate I should just count my losses and give up, I'm sure Chat Noir is thinking the same thing."

 **o0o**

"We need to cut our losses and help those people," Adrien said as he watched the news report, "I'm sure Ladybug is thinking the same thing. Hurry up and eat Plagg, we need to get back out there and help all those people."

"It doesn't necessarily work like that," Plagg said, floating around Adrien's head, "the akuma's work in a strange sense. When they are given to a person, the akuma is able to give that person a form, be it a costume, a monstrous transformation, or something else along those lines. When the akuma gives a person that form, it kinda retains the memory of it. Now, if it were cleansed, it would just go back to normal and fly of into the wild, but since it's not, it is able to take it's memory and duplicate it, giving it to new akumas which give the memory of that form to others. Get it so far?"

"Yeah," Adrien said, his hand on his chin as he listened, "I think so, but why is that stopping us?"

"Because they're copies, stopping them wont do much," Plagg said, "not to mention, the copies are a bit more powerful. While the original requires an object, the copies can inhabit a person directly, so there's no way to retrieve their akuma without harming them."

"Right," Adrien said, "I get it... but what if we erase the original memory? What if we purify the original akuma?"

"Then the other akumas would forget," Plagg said.

"So we just go get that one," Adrien said, "then it'll fix everything."

"Two problems with that kid," Plagg said, "one, you'd need to find the original akuma, and I'm sure whoever has the Moth Miraculous is likely keeping it close, waiting for the next time the original is able to be transformed again."

"Alright then," Adrien said, "what's the other problem?"

"Only Ladybug is capable of purifying akumas."

 **o0o**

"Then you're going to need to find another Ladybug," Marinette said, "clearly I'm not the person meant to do this. I'm just a klutz who can't even purify an akuma."

"And you'll do better next time," Tikki said, "skill comes from experience, and experience takes time. You will become the hero Paris needs right now, but you just need to take your time and practice."

"I... I can't," Marinette said, closing her eyes and curling up on the floor, "I... I'm not the hero Paris needs, I'm not the person meant to save Paris. I'm just Marinette, another clumsy Lycee school girl. No matter how much I try, I just screw up."

"You just need to be confident," Tikki said, "then you'll be able to do anything no problem."

"I can't do that Tikki," Marinette said, reaching up for her earrings and taking one off, "I'm sorry."

"WAIT," Tikki yelled, "DON'T TAKE THE EARRIN..."

She went silent as soon as Marinette took off the other earring. When Marinette looked around, there was sign of Tikki anywhere, almost like she had managed to vanish out of existence.

Marinette looked at the earrings, thinking of all that happened. She took the earrings and rolled them in her palm. "I'm... I'm sorry Tikki," Marinette said as she placed the earrings in one of her drawers, "I'm so sorry, but I'm not the hero that Paris needs."

 **o0o**

"Well we can't give up," Adrien said, pacing around his room, "I mean, there has to be something I can do to help those people without Ladybug's help."

"For now," Plagg said, "all we can do is wait, live our lives, and get ready for when the original akuma appears, and I need food to prepare."

"You have plenty of food," Adrien said, "gesturing to the several platters that were on the table in front of him, "eat some of that."

"I can't eat this," Plagg said as he picked up a cup filled with what Adrien thought was the most delicious looking ice cream that he had ever seen loaded with toppings, "seriously, what is wrong with you?"

"That was made by my personal chef," Adrien said as he took the ice cream from Plagg, "everything here is nothing short of five star quality."

"Really, cause it seems extremely far from even being one star quality," Plagg said, "I need something more chewy and delicate."

"Oh yeah," Adrien said with crossed arms, "like what?"

Plagg let out a smile that seemed almost devilish as he thought about it.

 **o0o**

The news was still the same the next morning. People were still concerned about the Inkess' that have appeared all over the city as well as the other events from yesterday. It was either the citizens being transformed, or more and more talk about Ladybug and Chat Noir. Although, the story had changed a bit, but not for the better. Now, the report was that Ladybug and Chat Noir themselves were the ones committing the robbery with the men in black simply being their lackeys. Talk about inaccurate news.

Marinette barely wanted to watch it, hating to see her mistakes replayed on the screen over and over again. It was a little worse each time, the more she heard it, the more it drilled in. She really just wanted the story to fade away into non-existence, but that certainly wasn't going to happen, the story had drawn far too much attention at this point, and it still had attention from all the Inkess' around the city, so it wasn't fading away anytime soon.

"Are you okay," Tom said as he put a couple of dishes in the sink, "you look distressed."

"Uh...yeah," Marinette said as she stirred her breakfast, "I was just... thinking about all that's happening."

"You don't need to worry about that," Tom said, gently rubbing his daughter's shoulder with his free hand, "I'm sure they'll catch those criminals soon."

"It's not the criminals," Marinette said, "They're go... I mean, they don't worry me as much as those monsters do."

Tom looked at the TV screen from over the counter which was currently cutting to various locations, each one showing one of the Inkess' frozen in time. "Hmm," Tom put his hand on his chin, "I suppose they are something to worry about."

"I'm not worried about the monsters," Marinette said, "I'm worried about the people inside the monsters, those innocent people who were transformed."

Tom stared at his daughter for a moment, taking in her depressed expression. "Don't worry Marinette," He finally said, "I'm sure it will all be fine. The police will capture those criminals and then I'm sure all those people will go back to normal."

Marinette continued to look at her shoes, "and... and if they don't?"

Tom let out a slight hum of thought, "then I'll protect you." He picked up a baguette and waved it around like a sword, "super baker to the rescue!"

Marinette laughed as she watched her father swing the baguette around wildly. She wrapped her arms around as much of his bearlike body as she could, then got on her toes and kissed him on the cheek, "thanks super dad." She smiled as she put her breakfast bowl in the sink and went up to her room to finish getting ready for school.

As she slung her purse over her shoulder, her eyes rested on the small drawer that currently contained the Miraculous. She lost her smile as she thought about the Miraculous, thinking about the damage she caused with it. But she also couldn't help but think about the good it could do, the good it could do in better hands. Marinette opened the drawer and took the earrings out, staring at them for a long time before putting them in her purse and heading down the stairs to walk to school.

 **o0o**

Natalie stared at the clock. She listened to the tick of the second hand in the silent room and watched as the minute hand slid forward another minute. He was late. Adrien may hate his lessons, but he was always very good about attending them and being on time, so it caught Natalie off guard that he was late. Perhaps he wasn't feeling well? Or perhaps he was still upset about the fact that his father decided that he should remain homeschooled?

Either way, he was late. She decided that it was probably best to go get him out of his room. If need be, they could have the lesson there today. He was technically ahead in his studies, maybe she could give him a break for the day.

She walked up to the door, the large gorilla that was Adrien's bodyguard moved out of the way to let her by. She gave the door a gentle knock, "Adrien?"

There was no answer.

Natalie knocked a little harder, in case Adrien hadn't heard her before, "Adrien, it's time for your studies."

Still no answer.

Natalie finally decided to just go get him. She opened the door and walked into the room, "Adrien, I know you are upset, but you still need to..." she cut herself off as she looked around, and what she saw surprised her. Or rather, what she didn't see.

Adrien wasn't in room.

Natalie panicked. She searched the entire room for the child, thinking he still had to be in here somewhere. She checked the upstairs, the bathroom, she even checked under the bed. He was nowhere to be found.

She quickly ran back to the door where Adrien's bodyguard was. "Adrien isn't in his room!"

The bodyguard looked at her, so surprised he was speechless (or at the very least, so surprised that he was unable to make any of the grunts that qualify as speech for him).

"Don't just stand there dumbfounded," Natalie said, "we have to find him before Mr. Agreste finds out that he's missing. He has to still be in the house, we just need to find him."

The Gorilla nodded and both him and Natalie took off around the house. They checked every single room in the mansion, even looking under tables and in cabinets to make sure that he wasn't hiding there.

"You checked the dining room again," Natalie said. The Gorilla nodded in response. "He must've ran off again," Natalie said, nervously running her fingers through her hair, "he probably ran off to school again. If we hurry, we can probably catch him before Mr. Agreste..."

"Before I what," a cold voice called from upstairs. Both Natalie and the Gorilla felt a chill down their spine as the voice hit their ears. Both of them quickly sprung to attention and turned to look up the stairs to see Gabriel Agreste standing at the top.

"Um... well sir," Natalie said with a large swallow, "Adrien... we believe that he has decided to run off again."

Gabriel's expression did not change, neither did his tone, both remaining cold as he stared down his employees, "you lost my son?"

"No sir," Natalie said nervously, "he just happened to get out of the house without us knowing, we're not sure how."

Gabriel remained silent for a long moment before speaking, "if either of you value your jobs I suggest that you get out there and find him immediately."

"Yes sir," Natalie said with a small bow, the Gorilla doing the same. Both of them quickly ran out the door to the mansion to find Adrien before Mr. Agreste decided to stop being generous.

 **o0o**

Adrien ran as fast as he could. He knew full well it was only a matter of time before Natalie noticed him missing, which meant he only had so much time to get to school before she found him and made him go back to homeschooling, and Adrien wanted to avoid that at all costs.

"You're such a strange kid," Plagg said, floating around Adrien's head when the coast was clear, "Who would want to be at school when you can stay at home all day?"

"You don't get it Plagg," Adrien said, "I've had enough of being shut up at home by my dad. I want to meet people and make friends, go to a normal school like everyone else."

Plagg was bored by the thought. He stopped in place and floated in laid back position, paw on his forehead, "Uhg, I think I'm feeling weak."

Adrien stopped in his tracks and turned to walk over to where the small kwami was floating, "you know what's strange, the fact that all you eat is this disgusting rotten smelling Camembert cheese, and that I have to smell like it 24/7, that's strange."

"If you want to be able to transform into a superhero, then stinky cheese is the deal my friend," Plagg said with a smile.

Adrien let out a sigh. He pulled on his over shirt a bit to allow Plagg to fly inside, then took off for the school again.

He ran as fast as he could, hoping to get to the school before...

"ADRIEN!" Adrien came to a screeching halt at the top of the stairs as he heard his own name. He quickly turned around to see Natalie standing on the edge of the sidewalk in front of the silver car. "Don't do this," Natalie said, "your father would be furious."

"Tell him you were too late," Adrien said, "please?" Before Natalie could answer, Adrien ran into the school.

She let out a sigh as she got back into the car. The Gorilla stared at her as she buckled her seatbelt. "I'll handle it," Natalie said. The Gorilla simply took the information at face value and drove the two of them back to the mansion.

 **o0o**

"Can you believe it," Alya said as her and Marinette walked into school together, "I managed to get a front row seat to the whole thing. Two robbers fighting an inky monster. I wonder if that monster was some kind of superhero, shame that she lost if she was."

"Yeah," Marinette said, dragging her feet as she walked into the school, "that does sound pretty cool." Even her best friend thought she was the bad guy, which only made Marinette more upset. She hated that even the people who saw what happened didn't know what really happened. All she could do was play along though, "I guess it's pretty cool."

"I know, right," Alya said with excitement, "to think, Paris has a superhero and super villains... well the super villains aren't good, but the hero will stop them. I'm honestly thinking of starting a blog about it"

Marinette gave a small nod, "yeah, sounds like a good idea." Marinette trudged slightly behind Alya while she continued to go on about the new hero and how awesome it was. She only stopped when she caught ear of something else nearby. She turned to see a crowd had gathered around one of the benches in the school courtyard. The crowd was also talking about the robbery, but they seemed to be asking a bunch of questions instead of just fanning out like Alya. It had Marinette curious.

She pushed her way through the crowd to see what it was that everyone was so interested in. When she reached the center, Marinette saw a girl that was very familiar, one Marinette wasn't going to forget anytime soon.

It was the girl that got transformed into Inkess.

"So what was it like Kate," Alix said, basically bouncing with excitement, "being transformed like that."

"I'm not really sure," The girl said with a smile, Marinette was sure her name was Kate based on what Alix said, "last thing I remember was going to the Louvre. I went to see some paintings and eat lunch after, but then I caught eye of some guys being let in by some of the security guards, and the guards just let them take the paintings. It made me so mad... and then I don't remember anything." She looked around at the crowd, "was I really that cool?

"You were awesome," Kim said, "your whole body was made of ink and you were shape shifting with it. There was a point where you had, like, 500 arms."

"A bit of an exaggeration," Max said, "but you were able to shift your bodily structure."

"It was totally awesome," Juleka added, "were a literal super villain fighting monster. It was one of the coolest thing I've ever seen."

"Oh please," Chloe said, leaning against a pillar nearby, "you weren't a hero, you were a giant monster."

"What are you talking about," Kim said, "she stopped those robbers."

"No she didn't," Chloe said, stepping off the pillar, "the robbers destroyed the paintings and then got away. Even if you were a hero and not a monster, you're a pretty bad one."

Kate lost her smile, "I... I didn't even know what I was doing."

"What you were doing was a terrible job," Chloe said, "I can guarantee I could've been a better hero than you. I could've stopped those criminals and saved the paintings, simple as that."

"I... I wasn't even sure of what I was doing," Kate said, "I sure I tried my best, despite not knowing what I was doing."

"Well your best wasn't good enough," Chloe said.

Kate clenched her fist really tight and got up, "well, at least I did something."

She stormed off, not wanting to hear a thing Chloe had to say anymore.

Marinette watched as the girl stormed off into another room, clearly angry about the whole thing. Marinette was about to go after her, but stopped when Alya walked in front of her, straight up to Chloe.

"What is wrong with you," Alya said, getting up in Chloe's face.

"What's wrong with me is that she was clearly not the hero," Chloe said, "she certainly didn't look like one. If anything, those 'robbers' looked more like heroes than she did."

Marinette never thought that she would actually agree with Chloe on anything, but there's a first for everything.

"Are you insane," Alya said, "they clearly stole those paintings and then destroyed them."

"Only to find that artifact thingy," Chloe said.

 _Not necessarily our intention,_ Marinette thought to herself, _but not necessarily wrong either._

"You're an idiot," Alya said.

"I'm just saying," Chloe said, "if she was a hero she would've stopped them before they stole the paintings and destroyed them."

"At the very least, they didn't get the artifact," Alya said.

"Then they'll just come back for it," Chloe said, "no matter how you put it, she was a bad hero and she failed." Chloe blew a bubble with her gum and popped it in Alya's face.

Alya growled before stomping her foot before turning and walking away from Chloe before she punched her. Marinette watched her friend storm off, almost wanting to go after her now to calm her down. She started to follow after until...

"Hey Chloe," someone called nearby. Marinette as well as everyone else turned to see a tall blonde boy in a black shirt with three stripes down the front and a white overshirt.

"ADRIKINS," Chloe shouted as she ran over and hugged the boy, nearly knocking him over.

 _Adrikins,_ Marinette thought to herself, _this must be the Adrien that I heard about yesterday._ As Marinette looked at him, she couldn't help but feel like she knew this boy. Apparently, she wasn't the only one. Before she could rack her brain to figure out who her new classmate is, he was swarmed by every student in the courtyard. No wonder he was friends with Chloe, he was clearly famous.

She decided it was better to focus on him later, not wanting to deal with the horde that had started to surround him and she especially didn't want to deal with Chloe.

She decided it would be better to go to the locker room and put some stuff away. She walked into the room and found that Kate was sitting on the bench.

"Hey," Marinette said, sitting down next to Kate, "you okay? I know how easy it is for Chloe to get on people's nerves."

Kate turned to her, surprising Marinette when she flashed a genuine smile, "it's okay. I tend to be pretty tolerant of even the worst people. It honestly takes a lot to get me mad, I just was tired of hearing her. I will admit, she got on my nerves a tad."

Marinette laughed, "yeah, she has a tendency to do that. You've done better than most already." Marinette knew that the akuma fed off her negative emotions, but it certainly didn't seem to be a problem for this girl. That did beg the question, how did she get akumatized in the first place? "I was wondering," Marinette said, "what were you doing at the Louvre?"

"Oh, I always go there during lunch. I love all the art and stuff there."

"Makes sense, it is all beautiful. Are you an artist?"

"Oh no," Kate said, "I'm not that good of an artist honestly, despite trying. I was just there to look."

"But weren't you wearing an artist's smock?"

"How'd you know about that?"

"Oh, uh..." Marinette kinda stumbled over herself. She certainly couldn't say she was there, so she came up with something else, "I saw you wearing it in the video."

"Oh... well, if I'm being honest... I might've sneaked around the area not open to the public, I was wearing that to try and blend in with the people to restore the paintings in the back. I just wanted to see them at work. But then..." She clenched her fists tight, "I saw those security just... just letting those men stealing those paintings..."

Marinette could see her gripping her hands so tightly that they were starting to go pale. "Hey hey hey," Marinette said, gently putting a hand on her back, "no negative emotions." Kate looked at her, confused. "I mean, you didn't let Chloe get to you, you can't break that kind of streak now."

Kate took a couple deep breaths, "yeah, you're right. Thank you... I'm sorry, I don't think I got your name."

"Oh, right," she laughed, "I'm Marinette."

"I'm Kate," the other girl responded, "and thank you Marinette."

Kate quickly got up, "I should probably get to class, I'd say you should do the same." She walked towards the door with a smile and a wave.

Marinette gave her own smile and wave as the other girl left. Marinette had to admit, she was pretty good at calming people down when they were angry. Well, it wasn't that hard since Kate was already a pretty calm person, but Marinette still felt like she could pat herself on the back. Maybe she couldn't stop akumas, but she could at least prevent them before they happened, help Chat Noir however she could.

Marinette, feeling extremely pleased, got up and walked to class.

 **o0o**

Adrien usually hated autographs, but he honestly didn't mind signing a couple since he was too excited about finally going to school. He probably would've signed more, but Chloe couldn't help but drag him along, almost as if to keep him away from everyone. She kept leading him by the arm until they got to a classroom where she finally broke away and ran up to one of the seats in the front.

"This is your seat Adrikins," she said as she gestured to the seat, "I saved it for you, right in front of me."

Adrien walked up and put his hand on her shoulder, "thanks Chloe." He walked past her and up to his seat. He sat down next to the boy in the blue shirt who was already there. "Hey,"He said as he stuck out his hand, "I'm Adrien."

The boy in blue seemed to look at him with almost disgust, "you're friends with Chloe then, huh?"

Adrien was confused, this not made it sound like being friends with Chloe was a bad thing. He didn't understand why that was so bad until he turned around and saw what Chloe was doing. She took out her gum and gave it to Sabrina, who promptly placed it on the seat adjacent to Adrien.

"Hey," Adrien said as he got back up, "what's that all about?"

"The brats that sat here yesterday need a little attitude adjustment," Chloe said, "I'm just commanding a bit of respect, that's all."

Adrien bent over to pick the gum off the seat, "you think that's really necessary?"

Chloe simply laughed as her and Sabrina went to take her seats. "You've got a lot to learn about school culture Adrikins," Chloe said as she sat down, "watch the master."

Adrien ignored his friend as he continued to try and pick the gum off the seat.

 **o0o**

The earrings felt like a thousand rocks in Marinette's purse. After thinking about akumas, her mind eventually returned to the miraculous in her purse. She knew that she couldn't keep it, she wasn't qualified enough to, it was better to find someone else. She needed someone who knew more about superheroes, about powers, someone who was better at handling the thing Marinette couldn't. Someone like...

"Hey girl," Alya said as she past her friend.

 _Perfect,_ Marinette thought. She quickly followed Alya, skipping a few steps on the stairs to catch up with her. "Hey Alya," Marinette saidonc she was walking beside her friend, "wouldn't you like to be a superhero and go out and fight monsters and villains?"

"Totally," Alya said with excitement, "I'm not scared of anyone. Why?"

"Oh," Marinette said, "No reason, just all this talk of heroes got me thinking about it." Alya smiled and turned her attention back to walking. Marinette took advantage of this.

She quickly reached into her purse and took out the Miraculous. Carefully, she slipped the earrings into a small pocket of Alya's bag, hoping that her friend would find them later, then went back to walking besides her friend like nothing had happened.

Both of them continued to walk until they came into classroom, where both of them stopped and gasped when they saw the new kid, trying to put gum on their seats.

"HEY," Marinette said, storming over to her seat, "WHAT'RE YOU DOING!?"

"Oh," Adrien said, quickly realizing how bad this seemed, "I...uh..."

Chloe and Sabrina cracked up laughing, allowing Marinette to quickly catch on. "Okay," Marinette said, "good job you three, very funny."

"Nonono," Adrien said as he stood up, "I was just trying to take this off."

Marinette got up in his face, "Oh really?" She bent over and placed a tissue over the gum so she wouldn't sit on it, "you're friends with Chloe, right?"

"Why do people keep saying that," Adrien said, he couldn't help but feel like being friends with his friend was a bad thing here.

Marinette got up with a hmph before taking her own seat. Adrien simply cut his losses and decided to take his own seat, a little bit upset.

"Now do you see what I mean about respect," Chloe said once he had sat down.

Adrien simply sighed and looked down at his desk.

Marinette glared the boy down, realizing he still seemed familiar, "I know I've seen him somewhere before."

Alya quickly provide the answer to that when Alya passed her phone back over to Marinette. As soon as she saw the phone, a burst of realization hit Marinette.

"Of course," Marinette said as she scrolled through the images, "he's the son of my fave fashion designer Gabriel Agreste."

Alya put an arm on Marinette's shoulder, "daddy's boy, teen supermodel, and Chloe's buddy? Forget it."

Marinette knew she was right, Adrien was way out of her league. She looked at him from across the aisle, realizing that something still bugged her. Despite knowing who he was, she couldn't help but feel like she knew more. There was a feeling where she was certain she had _met_ him before, but she couldn't place where.

It didn't matter anyways, after what just happened, she didn't want anything to do with Adrien.

Adrien couldn't help but think about her though. He felt bad despite doing nothing wrong. His first day of school and he had already screwed things up with someone who honestly seemed like a nice girl. In fact, he somehow _knew_ she was nice, he didn't know how though. It was like he knew her, but didn't.

The boy next to him finally broke his line of thought, "why didn't you tell them it was Chloe's idea?"

"I've known Chloe since I was a little kid," Adrien said, "I know she's not perfect, but I can't throw her under the bus. She's like my only friend."

The boy in blue felt a bit bad for him, so he decided to fix it. "I'm Nino," he said with a smile as he stuck out his hand, "and it's time for you to make some new friends dude."

Adrien couldn't help but smile as he took his new friend's hand and shook it.

 **o0o**

"So she's a positive person," Hawkmoth said as he stared out his window, "that does not make her immune to my akuma, it's only a matter of time until her emotions run rampant again, and then I will have an army of Inkess' to retrieve the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous. Until then..."

He could feel it, all of the emotions of every person in Paris. He was going to look for negative emotions, sadness, anger, fear, but that wasn't going to work for his new plan. Paris thought that these new Miraculous holders were the villains, it was for his benefit to keep that narrative going. Instead, he looked for emotions aimed against these new "villains". Emotions he could use to create a hero that would hunt down the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous' willingly and bring them back to him. Emotions like...

"An officer," Hawkmoth said once he found the perfect prey, "a law enforcer who simply want's to catch criminals to be a good person and do his duty to the people. Perfect."

He held out his hand to let a small white butterfly flutter into his palm, enclosing it with his other hand and channeling energy into it. When he removed one of his hands, he could see that the butterfly had changed to black and purple, changed into an akuma.

"Fly my akuma," Hawkmoth said as he released the small insect into Paris, "help me show the world what a real hero is."

The akuma flew through the window and out into Paris, looking for the one has chosen for it to transform. It took the akuma a short time to find its victim, but it eventually found the prey that Hawkmoth had intended. Roger Raincomprix.

He was grabbing the handle to the door, getting in his squad car to go on patrol for the day, when the Akuma landed on his whistle.

A voice began to ring in the officers ear, "Mr. Raincomprix, I am Hawkmoth, the hero of Paris. I can see that you are a pure hearted soul hat would like to help this city, I would simply like to grant you the powers to do so. In return, I require your help. Two items have been stolen from me, the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous', and they are being used by those thieves from the Louvre. All I ask is that you retrieve them for me. To take the powers or not is your choice, what do you say?"

Roger didn't know if he could trust this voice in his head, he certainly didn't know any Hawkmoth and saw no reason to listen to him. But there was something stopping him from saying no, something ringing in the back of his mind that made it almost impossible to resist. Something that saw nothing wrong with the offer.

That something worked it's way to the front of his mind.

"It is my duty as an officer to catch these criminals," Roger said.

"Good," Hawkmoth said, "then I give you the power to capture them. Go forth Rogercop, and capture the thieves."

Before Roger could say anything more, he was enveloped by black, bubbly smoke.

 **o0o**

Marinette hated how slow the clock seemed to move extremely slow today, almost like it was completely still. Why did it seem to not move? Was it broken? Honestly, if it wasn't for the second hand, she would have been sure that it was broken. Despite giving the Miraculous to Alya, she still didn't want to be here. She would prefer to be back at home, sleep until this whole ordeal blew over, maybe even work on some designs.

Maybe she wouldn't come back to school after lunch, but her parents certainly wouldn't like her ditching the second half of school two days in a row. She probably couldn't come up with another excuse anyways, she didn't really want to either. It was better just to tough through the day, she could go home later and then nap.

She had to admit, despite wanting to leave, she was feeling good now. She had managed to comfort an akuma victim, despite said victim not needing it, and she also found someone better suited to hold onto the Miraculous than her. She had every reason to feel good. Today was seeming like a good day.

"CITIZENS," a loud voice boomed from the street, "PLEASE REMAIN CALM, A SEARCH IS SIMPLY BEING CONDUCTED TO FIND THE THIEVES FROM THE LOUVRE!" Class screeched to a halt as every student ran to the window to see what is was. Everyone was in awe as they saw a man in a metallic black and blue suit with sirens on his shoulders standing in front of a metallic blue police car. shouting from the streets.

"Awesome," Alya said as she stared t the almost robotic man, "he looks like another superhero." Her eyes glimmered with excitement as she stared at the metal man, bouncing on her heels.

"Come on girl," Alya said to Marinette, "we need to go check this out, maybe he can tell us a bit more about the criminals who robbed the Louvre."

Marinette had to admit, she was a bit curious about this new akuma. She was curious about his powers.

On the other hand though, if this guy was looking for the thieves...

"No thanks," Marinette said, going back to her seat, "I think it's better to stay safe. I'm personally going to find a safe place to hide." She picked up Alya's bag and held it out for her to take it, "you go ahead."

"Suit yourself," Alya said. With that, Alya took off as fast as she could. Surprisingly enough, Adrien seemed to follow her out the door quickly followed by Chloe, all three of them going unnoticed by Ms Bustier since she was too focused on the akumatized man outside. Marinette had guessed they were interested in the new hero as well.

Marinette worried for Alya. She may know a lot about superheroes, but this would certainly be her first time being one, Marinette couldn't help but worry for her. At the very least, she would have Chat Noir, he seemed to know what he was doing. Marinette could ease her stresses a little bit knowing she was in good hands. She was sure that she would do fine with the Miracul...

Marinette quickly realized that Alya didn't have the Miraculous. Marinette was still holding the bag in her hands when Alya left. Marinette still had the earrings. Alya was running in alone.

Marinette couldn't leave her friend to the akuma like that. She had to get the bag to her, she had to get the Miraculous to her. Marinette took the bag and quickly ran after her friend, hoping she could reach her before she was face to face with the akuma.

 **o0o**

Adrien strayed away from Alya and Chloe. He needed to find a place to hide, and he certainly didn't want them around to see him transform. He quickly ran to the locker room to find it was completely empty, perfect. He found an open locker and then lifted his overshirt to let Plagg fly out inside.

"Whoo," Plagg called as he flew out, "you're in luck kid, only got a half day. You've realized how bad school is and now you have a chance to run while you can"

"Afraid not Plagg," Adrien said with a smirk, "we're gonna be working on some extra credit."

"PLAGG, CLAWS OUT!"

The kwami was sucked into the ring. In a brilliant green flash,Chat Noir was standing where Adrien was.

"Alright," Chat said, "now let's go school that akuma."

 **o0o**

Marinette wasn't able to catch up with the girls in front of her. Both of them seemed to move like lightning at the thought of the "hero" outside. Marinette could care less about Chloe, but she needed to catch up to Alya. Paris was gonna need a real hero and Alya was the only one Marinette could think of that could fill that role. Marinette _needed_ to get to her.

All three girls ran down the stairs and out the entryway, but Marinette stopped when the other two turned the corner. If this akuma was looking for her, it was probably better not to push her luck. Instead, she decided to push her back against the wall and peaked around the corner, doing her best to listen in on the conversation, but she couldn't hear anything. From where she was, all she could tell was that Alya was asking questions and Chloe was trying to cut her off and step on her toes.

Next thing she knew, the akuma was guiding both Alya and Chloe into his suped up squad car. _NO,_ Marinette thought to herself, _HE'S TAKING THEM!_ This was bad, she couldn't get the Miraculous to her friend if she was kidnapped. The akuma got into the car and began driving away, luckily he seemed to be abiding traffic laws, Marinette could still catch up. She turned the corner to run into sprint, but stopped when a black figure landed on top of the car. Chat Noir.

He was there to help, he could save them, he could...

Before Marinette could list off anything else that Chat could do, the cars wheels shifted and it began to hover in the air with him on top. The car shook and spun around in the air as it ascended to try and shake Chat off. After a failed attempt to get him off, the akuma got out of the car and got on top to fight Chat while the car flew itself. She couldn't help but watch as the car took off with Chat on top in a fight, Alya inside being taken, and Chloe, but Marinette didn't care as much about her.

She couldn't help but watch as the car ascended higher and higher. As it rose, she saw Chat being held by the shirt over the edge of the car, ready to drop him

 _NO,_ Marinette thought, _DON'T HURT HIM!_ She didn't know what to do. Her friend was in danger. No, her _friends_ were in danger. She was completely lost.

 _The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing._ The words Alya had said rung in Marinette's mind. Marinette didn't think about them much when Alya said them the first time, but now she literally couldn't stop thinking about them. That officer, even if he didn't know it, was evil, and Marinette couldn't do nothing. No, she _wouldn't_ do nothing.

She quickly reached into the bag and grabbed the earrings out of the pocket she had slipped them in earlier and quickly put them on. There was a bright pink flash before Tikki appeared in front of her.

"I knew you'd make the right decision," Tikki said with a small flutter of happiness.

"Thanks Tikki," Marinette said, "but we don't have time for a reunion. We have to save my friends and Chloe. I may not be cut out for this, but I can't just do nothing." Tikki nodded in response.

"TIKKI, SPOTS ON!"

 **o0o**

Chat made it to the roof rather quickly. He figured an aerial attack would be most sufficient, so he decided to jump out the window of the locker room and climb to the top of the school. From there, he would be able to jump on top of the guy. Maybe he could get his hands on the item before Ladybug got here, then he can hold onto until she's here to purify it. The plan seemed flawless in his mind.

Step 1: jump on the akuma victim

Step 2: take the akumatized object

Step 3: run and hide until Ladybug finds him so she can purify the akuma

Now he just had to act on it.

He ran to the edge of the roof on the side where the akuma was supposed to be, and hopefully still was. He really hoped it hadn't run off yet. He needed to hurry just in case.

He took his stick off his back and spun it at his side, ready to use it to vault onto the akuma and then smack it down on him. He got to the edge, ready to vault, but froze and planted his feet to stop himself at the edge.

Chloe.

 _Damn it,_ Chat thought to himself, _what does she think she's doing._ Of course, he could guess the answer, she wanted to see a hero. She always loved heroes, it was one of the main reasons they became friends when they were kids, besides their parents working together. She obviously didn't realize the danger she was in, which meant he needed to help her. Plus, there was that other girl there. Chat didn't know her that well and he was sure that she hated him, but he had to help her all the same.

He saw the akuma direct them into the back of the car, he was taking them. Chat had to act fast before the akuma got away with them. He took a couple steps back, spinning his staff at his side. He still needed some momentum to land on the akuma, hoping his plan would still work. His ears twitched a bit as he heard the car start to drive away, he needed to act fast.

He charged forward, planting his stick on the lip of the roof. He extended his stick just a bit to get some extra distance. He soared through the air and landed on top of the car with a thud. He had to shake his leg off, not his best landing, but hopefully he'll get better with practice. His landing was so bad, he felt a bit shaky.

 _Wait,_ Chat thought, _it's not me that's shaking._ He looked over the edge and saw that the wheels had folded out and the car was no longer on the ground, it was flying.

He stood up on the car, trying to gain his balance. Before he could fully gain his balance, the car started to shake. He leaned over and planted his claws in the car in order to not get shaken off. The car flipped, but Chat managed to hang on by dangling by his claws. He placed his stick on his back and stuck the other set of claws in to stay on as he began to rise above the buildings. The car flipped back over and Chat was able to get on his feet again. He took his claws out of the car and stood back up.

He dusted himself off as the drivers door opened, the akuma stepped out, and climbed onto the top of the car.

"Hey there," Chat said, "sorry about the claw marks, but I think your insurance can cover that."

"You are under arrest," the akuma said in an extremely robotic voice. He stuck out his arms, causing two small blasters to pop out of his wrists, "come peacefully for your own good."

"Hmm," Chat hummed with his hand on his chin, "I would, but the I'd have to wear prison colors and orange does not go well with my eyes."

"Very well," the officer said. He fired a series of small beams from his wrists, forcing Chat to dodge all of them. Chat was in a bad position though, he didn't have much room to dodge, but he also had an advantage, that clunky armor the akuma was wearing made his movements clunky.

"A bit slow," Chat said as he rolled between the akumas legs, taking his stick off his back and extending it to bo staff length, "you should try doing some more cardio."

The akuma spun around as Chat took a fighting stance. "You know," Chat said, "the last 'hero' we fought had a name, kinda cool one too, Inkess. Mind if I ask yours?"

"You may call me Rogercop," the akuma said, "I suppose I must ask you name."

"You can call me Chat Noir," the black cat said as he bowed, "pleasure to meet you Rogercop, even if your name is lame."

"Chat Noir," Rogercop said, ignoring his jokes, "I will give you one more chance to surrender, I suggest you take it."

"I can say the same thing," Chat said, spinning his bo staff, "cause I really don't want to have to hurt you."

"You won't get the chance," Rogercop said. He fired a barrage of beams at Chat Noir, who spun his staff so it was fast enough to act as a shield. It was so fast that he was barely able to see it, it was just a silver and green blur. He was actually kind of impressed with his own speed.

Rogercop eventually stopped firing and put his arms down. "What's the matter," Chat said, holding his staff at his side, "giving up?"

"You should have surrendered while you had the chance," Rogercop said, "now this is going to be painful." Chat didn't understand what the akuma meant, up until he saw what was on the ends of his staff. There was a small red ring on one end, a blue one on the other end. Were these what Rogercop was trying to hit him with.

Chat tried to pull the small rings off, but they were stuck to his staff tougher than glue. As Chat tried to pull the rings off, Rogercop blew on the whistle that was around his neck. In an instant, Chat's staff flew to the ground like it was magnetized.

"What," Chat said as he tried to pry his staff off the car, it wouldn't budge an inch though. As he tried to pick up his staff, Rogercop came over and picked Chat up by his shirt.

"Chat Noir," Rogercop said, "you are under arrest for breaking and entering, theft, destruction of property, and assaulting an officer."

"I don't think I actually hit you," Chat said, struggling to get out of Rogercop's grip, "I feel like you should _scratch_ the assault charges."

"I would be willing to remove the charges," Rogercop said, "if you are willing to give up your partner in crime."

"Sorry," Chat said, "but I don't even know enough about her to do that."

"Then I will be adding obstruction of justice to the charges," Rogercop said, "you will be detained immediately until a trial."

Chat couldn't escape Rogercop's grip, but he certainly didn't want to go to jail. He needed to get away before Rogercop decided to put those rings on him, then he definitely wouldn't be able to get away then. He needed something to get away fast, he needed a plan.

He quickly noticed that Rogercop had one foot on top of his staff, giving him an idea. It was likely not going to work, but he had to try something.

"Sorry Roger," Chat said, "but I'm gonna have to do a rain check on that trial." Before Rogercop could say anything, Chat kicked his staff right on the paw print to make it shrink down. It slid out of the rings and caused Rogercop to slip on the staff which was now the size of a baton. Rogercop lost his grip on Chat as he fell on his back, dropping him over the edge and sending him into a free fall.

Chat went into a panic as he clawed at the air. This was certainly not his plan, he had thought that he could stay on the car, or at the very least that he was closer to the ground. He didn't have his staff, and there was certainly nowhere safe to land.

 _Well,_ Chat thought to himself, wind rushing past his face, _this is it. I figured I'd have a longer hero career, a more dramatic end said career._ He closed his eyes as he fell, waiting for impact.

As he fell, he could've sworn that he felt a tug around his waist, but he was sure that was just the wind. He kept waiting for the impact, until everything suddenly stopped. The wind stopped and the world seemed to grind to a halt. Was that it?

"You know kitty," someone said, a very familiar voice, "for some one who's supposed to land always on his feet, that was about to be one hell of a face plant."

Chat slowly opened his eyes to see that he was hanging just inches above the pavement. He looked up to see a small red and black disk wrapped around his tail with a small black thread which went up, wrapped around a light post, and all lead back to...

"LADYBUG," Chat yelled with glee.

"Sup cat," Ladybug said, pulling on her yo-yo a bit to pull him away from the ground.

"I am so happy to see you," Chat said, "I was this close to becoming a floor pancake." He was pulled up until him and Ladybug were face to face. "You know my lady," Chat said with a smirk, "isn't this the point where we do the Spider-Man kiss?"

Ladybug let go of her yo-yo and let Chat fall onto the floor, "no, and don't call me your lady."

"Can't blame me for trying," Chat said as he sprung back onto his feet. He gave out a smug smile, up until his baton fell on the sky and hit him on the head.

Ladybug laughed as Chat picked up his baton, extended it to it's normal length and put it on his back. Chat laughed with her, but stopped when his ears started to twitch.

"He's coming back," Chat said.

"Then let's take him on," Ladybug said as she prepped her yo-yo, "I'm ready this time."

Before Ladybug could go forward, Chat put a had on her shoulder. "We can't," he said, "he's too tough for a head on fight, especially if we're in the air. We'll have to think about this. Our best bet is to move before he finds us."

"I can't," Ladybug said, "I have to stay and fight him, he's got my fri... I mean, he's got civilians."

"I know," Chat said, "believe me, I know, but we can't help them if we can't help ourselves. We'll hide for now, regroup our thoughts and then come back to help."

She had to think about how Alya was in danger, but she had to admit, Chat was right. "Alright," She said, "let's find a place to hide, then we can think of a plan."

Chat nodded, "We should stick to the streets and alleys though, if we run on the rooftops he'll be able to see us from the air."

Ladybug nodded before running into an alley, Chat close behind her. They ran through the streets, Chat listening to make sure they hid when Rogercop was overhead. They kept running, searching for a place they could hide.

 **o0o**

The restaurant was abandoned. Ladybug remembered it being a fancy eatery that her parents would bring her to on special occasions, it was where they went when they finally got the bakery opened. She had no idea why it went out of business, maybe it didn't get enough business, maybe the owners simply decided to shut it down and retire. Either way, it was empty and abandoned now.

"Good hiding spot," Chat said as he ran his fingers over one of the tables that was in the room, leaving a trail in the dust on top, "very... homey."

"It was the first place I thought of," Ladybug said as she pulled the plastic dust cover off one of the tables, sending dust flying. Ladybug coughed as she waved the dust out of her face, throwing the cover off to the side. She pulled out one of the chairs at the table and took a seat, Chat sitting across from her.

"It's nice," Chat said, "maybe it could use some new paint and furniture, but it's nice."

"Don't talk like it's permanent Chat," Ladybug said, "we just need to hide out until we can figure out how to beat Rogercop."

"Not to mention we need to fix Inkess," Chat said.

"Yeah," Ladybug said, "but she's a bit harder."

"We just need to draw out the original," Chat said, "and then..."

"And then we can purify it which will get rid of the the copies," Ladybug said, "my kwami explained after I forgot to purify the first akuma. That's actually why Inkess is a bit tougher, I actually got a heart to heart with the girl who was transformed."

"Really? How's that make it harder?"

"Her akuma was fueled by negative emotions," Ladybug said as she locked her fingers together and put her elbows on the table, "so it requires negative emotions in order to come back, but she's a positive person. Even one of the worst people I've met in my life wasn't able to make her angry, it was honestly impressive and frustrating."

"So what do you propose," Chat said as he leaned onto the hind legs of his chair, "we now have a cop akuma and an ink akuma, how do we stop them?"

"Well," Ladybug said. She didn't even finish her thought, she had to stop and think. She let out a light hum as she thought. There was an officer, likely akumatized because he wanted to stop the new criminals that were in his city, and a girl who admired art, akumatized because she saw art being stolen from a museum. They both were akumatized because they saw injustice, and now that's what they aimed to stop.

Then it all clicked together. She remembered one crucial detail that fit all the pieces together, one that allowed her to come up with a plan.

"We need to get her angry," Ladybug said, "and if we get Inkess angry, then her AND Rogercop will come running to us. We'll be able to get Rogercop in a building, so he won't have an aerial advantage. Not to mention, we'll be one step closer to achieving our ultimate goal."

"What," Chat said, leaning forward again, "how?"

"Inkess only gets mad when art or the likes are stolen," Ladybug said, "Rogercop is an officer who will run towards a robbery to stop it, and there's a Miraculous in the Louvre that we need to retrieve."

"THERE'S A MIRACULOUS IN THE LOUVRE," Chat said, springing to his feet, "WHERE!?"

"It was hidden among the paintings you destroyed," Ladybug said, standing up herself, "now it's on display there."

"Oh man," Chat said, "I saw those on TV, why didn't Plagg tell me they were a Miraculous. Not to mention I forgot that I destroyed those paintings"

"Don't worry," Ladybug said, "I can fix them once I purify the akuma. Magic and all that."

"Alright then," Chat said, taking off his hood and lightly scratching the back of his neck with his claws (much to Ladybug's confusion because it made her less certain of how the cat ears on his hood worked), "if you want to lure them in, then what's your plan?"

"I thought it was obvious," Ladybug said with a smirk, "we need to lure in two people who hate injustice and get a Miraculous from the museum."

"Wait," Chat said, the gears turning in his head, "you're not suggesting..."

"It's what we were chosen to do," Ladybug cut off, "and I'm not a fan of it either to be honest, but I don't think we have a choice. We need to stop the akumas, save the civilians, and get the Miraculous, might as well do it all at once."

Chat thought for a second, "I get what you're aiming at." He took in a deep breath, "Paris already thinks we're criminals you know?"

"Then let's prove them right," Ladybug said, "I'm ready to do anything to save Aly... to save all the people of Paris." She hopped up on the table, trying to add some dramatic effect to the situation, "Chat Noir, I'm about to do something I can't go back from, so I'm giving you a chance to turn away."

Chat shook his head, "I think you forgot, Paris already thinks I'm a criminal too. I can't go back..." He hopped up on the table as well, "might as well go forward."

"Alright then," Ladybug said. The two of them locked hands in a 'bro handshake' manner, "Chat Noir, let's rob the Louvre."

 **o0o**

"Nervous," Ladybug said as the two of them stared down at the pyramid. It was pretty busy, which meant that they would definitely be seen by someone and draw a bunch of attention.

"Very," Chat Noir said, "I might be a cat, but surprisingly I'm not ready for cat burglary. You?"

"Extremely," Ladybug said. She could feel the butterflies rattling in her stomach as she stared down at the pyramid.

"You were supposed to say no," Chat said, "show that at least one of us is confident."

"You're the confident one here, charging in without a second thought. If anyone should be easing nerves, it's you."

"It should be you, it was your plan in the first place. You should be the one that's calm."

"Let's just agree that we should both be calm," Ladybug said with a deep breath, "if we're gonna rob the Louvre, we can't be freaking out."

"Fair enough,"Chat said taking a couple deep breaths of his own, "I think I'll be good. So what's the plan."

"Stealth to the wind," Ladybug said, "we charge in swinging, draw attention of Rogercop. Hopefully news'll break fast and Inkess will follow." Ladybug then noticed a black inky figure near the Louvre, one of the Inkess', "you know, it just occurred to me that we'll be up against an army of Inkess'."

"And now I'm freaking out again," Chat said.

"Yeah," Ladybug said, "me too." She took another deep breath, "at least we got each other for this."

"Yeah," Chat said, "so the plan?"

"My best plan is that we smash through the glass pyramid," Ladybug said, "if we do that, it'll set off the alarms in the museum."

"Rogercop will come," Chat said, taking a couple more deep breaths, "it's his duty to do so, but Inkess..."

"We'll have to hope we make the news," Ladybug said, "and then we have to hope that the original Inkess see's it." She pointed at the Inkess that was frozen near the Louvre, "if that one moves, we know she's on her way."

"Right," Chat said, "anything else?"

Ladybug thought for a bit, "no. I think that's it. You ready?"

"Not at all," Chat said, "but I don't think I'm gonna be so we might as well go now."

"Yeah," Ladybug said, "same here." Ladybug stared down at the pyramid, "on three, we charge through the front door and make a break for the door and search for the Miraculous. We find it quick and get out."

"Hang on," Chat said, "the goal is to try and draw attention. If we just break in and out, we won't get that attention."

"What do you suggest then?"

Chat barred his claws, "you said you can fix the paintings I destroyed, right?" Ladybug nodded. Chat stared at his claws, "then... maybe I should check some of the other paintings to make sure they don't have any more Miraculous."

"We can't destroy more," Ladybug said, "we're already pushing it with the whole 'robbing the Louvre' thing. We already have a bad image and I think it's better we don't make it worse."

"It's gonna be worse no matter what," Chat said, "you know, the whole 'robbing the Louvre' thing. If anything, its better just to take the bad image, accept that our damage will be fixed, and get as much attention as we can to make sure that Rogercop and Inkess show up."

Ladybug hated more destruction, but he was right. It would all be fixed in the end, might as well make sure that the akumas show up and that they don't miss any Miraculous. "Alright," She finally said, spinning her yo-yo at her side, "and maybe I can check some of the statues?"

"Yeah," Chat said with a smirk, "well, I think we got a plan then. Ready?"

"I was ready before you changed the plan," Ladybug said, "so on three, we charge in, wreck house, and find the Miraculous."

"On three," Chat agreed, "and the second we start, we're gonna have to fake some confidence." Ladybug nodded in agreement. He took his stick off his back and spun it in his hand, "one."

"Two," Ladybug said, unclipping her yo-yo from her belt.

"THREE," both of them shouted together. Ladybug jumped off the roof and charged for the door, Chat following close behind. They ran through the crowd as fast as they could, a couple people taking pictures as they ran past.

 _Draw attention,_ Ladybug thought, _check. Now let's commit some crime and hope Rogercop and Inkess come after us._

They burst through the doors and began looking around. "Split up," Ladybug said, "remember, find the Miraculous and cause as much damage as you can along the way."

"Destruction's my power," Chat said, barring his claws again, "I'll have no problem causing damage." He took off towards an exhibit. He sounded so confident, but Ladybug knew that she could see how nervous he was if she was able to see the rest of his face. She felt pretty envious of that bandanna all of a sudden. In a brief moment, she realized she should do the same. She took the scarf of her suit and pulled it up until it covered her chin and mouth.

 _Can't let people know I'm scared,_ Ladybug thought. Once her scarf was securely covering the bottom half of her face, she took off in the opposite direction from Chat. Ladybug quickly ran into an exhibit hall, one full of paintings and people. Ladybug forced some fake confidence into her voice before speaking, "ladies and gentlemen, I'm afraid the exhibit is closed due to... unforeseen damages." Ladybug spun her yo-yo and whipped it around, cutting through several paintings in the room and ripping them to shreds.

People went into a panic, either running away from Ladybug or running past her to make a break for the main exit. _So far so good,_ Ladybug thought. She took off again, running from room to room and repeating the process. As she ran, the fake confidence was starting to turn to real confidence. It wasn't as hard as she had first thought, maybe she could actually do this. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, she was exhilarated now.

When she came up with this plan she didn't expect it to be so... so... _exciting._ Why was it exciting? She had never felt this excited before. She actually couldn't help but smile as she ran and smashed. She... she actually liked this, she was having fun. It may be the most fun she'd ever had, and that made it so she couldn't help but smile more.

She didn't feel like shy, nervous Marinette anymore, she felt like cool and confident Ladybug. And she felt awesome.

Eventually, she ran into Chat again. "Any luck," Ladybug said, pulling her yo-yo back.

"Not yet," Chat said, sounding just as excited as she did, "but I think I'm getting really good at destroying everything in sight. Give me a couple more minutes and I'll have the Miraculous from yesterday plus some."

"Assuming I don't get them first," Ladybug said.

"Is that a challenge bugaboo," Chat said.

"Don't call me bugaboo, but yes, I think it is."

"You're on." Chat took his staff and ran off, "good luck, too bad it won't help."

Ladybug let out a smirk, not that her partner could see it behind her scarf, then took off in a different direction from where Chat went. She was extremely determined now, no way was she letting that mangy alley cat beat her.

Ladybug continued her search, feeling more alive than she ever had before. She moved at a faster pace than before, not wanting to lose to Chat Noir. She felt determined to find the Miraculous more than ever, she'd be lying if she said beating her partner wasn't a driving force though.

She continued her search for the exhibit surrounding the Miraculous, smashing what she could along the way. She ran and ran and ran until eventually...

 _Perfect,_ Ladybug thought as she entered a large, almost empty room. Almost empty, save for a single podium in the center that had a display case containing two small black jewels in the shape of ram horns. "Chat's not gonna be happy about this," Ladybug said as she clipped her yo-yo back to her belt, "but I certainly am." She walked up to the display case, only to see it was locked. "Oh no," Ladybug said dryly, "whatever will I do?"

She raised her fist above her head and then hit the display case as hard as she could, shattering it to bits. "Oh right," she said, "like that." She picked up the Miraculous and held in her hands. "One Miraculous down," Ladybug said as she rolled them in her hand, "who knows how many more to g..."

As she was speaking, something slammed into her back, lifted her up, and shoved her against the wall. The Miraculous fell out of Ladybug's hand as she was thrown against the wall. _NO,_ Ladybug thought as she was pressed against the stone.

Ladybug turned her head around, looking at the large inky hand. Inkess.

"Glad you decided to show up," Ladybug groaned out, trying to push her way through the ink, "I was starting to think you forgot about us."

Inkess was silent, almost lifeless. It must've been one of the fakes, that had to be why it seemed so lifeless compared to when Ladybug fought the original.

"Alright," Ladybug said, trying to force her hand through the ink to get her yo-yo with little to no success, "not much of a talker, guess that means talking this out isn't an option."

She struggled to escape the ink, but couldn't move an inch through it. The ink was slowly crawling up her body, covering every inch of her body. Ladybug was completely stuck, she wasn't able to get out alone.

Luckily, she wasn't alone.

The silver stick appeared out of the shadows and pushed itself into the ink, pressing against Ladybug and pushed her out.

"Starting without me my lady," Chat said, shortening his stick to the size of a baton, "how rude."

"Sorry kitty," Ladybug said as she wiped some of the ink off herself, "she was the one that started the party, I didn't really get a choice in the matter."

"Well then," Chat said as he spun his staff, "guess we need to teach her some manners."

"We can't teach her anything," Ladybug said, "this is just a fake, one of the copies. We still have to wait for the real one."

"Well at least we know she accepted our party invitation," Chat said, extending his stick back to normal length and holding it like a bat, "so, how about a few party games while we..."

He got cut off by his stick getting hit by something. When he looked at the top, there was a small blue ring on the end. "Looks like our other guest has arrived," Chat said.

The shrill sound of the whistle echoed through the room, Chat being forced to let go of his stick as it flew against the wall.

"Chat Noir," Rogercop said, holding up his arms and keeping one of his wrist mounted blasters trained on Chat, the other on Ladybug, "you and your accomplice are under arrest, please do not resist for your own benefit."

"Accomplice?," Ladybug said, "the name's Ladybug, I'd like to be called by it."

"Very well," Rogercop said, "Ladybug and Chat Noir, surrender for your own benefit."

Ladybug examined the situation. The Inkess seemed to have stopped again, completely motionless. The akuma hadn't been released, so Ladybug assumed it stopped because Rogercop was now on the scene. The second the police akuma attacked, the ink akuma would start moving again. They probably had some type of connection, maybe one that Ladybug could use if she could figure it out.

"What if we choose not to," Ladybug said, trying to stall a bit so that she could think, "what would the consequences be?"

"We will arrest you by force," Rogercop said, "and then take your Miraculous, returning them to who they belong to."

"And who might they belong to," Chat said, catching onto Ladybug's stalling tactic, "I personally remember being gifted this ring, I'd love to send whoever gave them to me a thank you note."

Before Rogercop answered, a purple butterfly mark appeared over his face. It had to be whoever had the butterfly Miraculous.

"The rightful owner has requested to remain anonymous," Rogercop said after the butterfly mark faded, "however, I must retrieve them all the same. I must also arrest you for the many crimes that you have committed."

"You stole my weapon," Chat said, "twice. What are the repercussions for that?"

"Enough," Rogercop said, "I am done with this baseless chatter."

"Aw," Chat said, "and here I thought that we were bonding."

"Consider yourself lucky that I am offering a chance at surrender again," Rogercop said, "I highly recommend you take it."

Ladybug shook her head, a motion that went unnoticed by Rogercop, but Chat noticed it and nodded in agreement. "Sorry officer," Ladybug said, "but we've reached a unanimous decision to ignore your offer and kick your ass."

"Very well," Rogercop said, "you have made your choice."

Both of the akumas sprang to life in an instant. Rogercop pointed both his wrist blasters at Chat and opened fire, forcing the black cat to run around to avoid being hit. He quickly jumped back to the wall and shrunk his staff out of Rogercop's cuff like before, then continued to dodge to avoid being caught like his staff was.

The fake Inkess turned her attention towards Ladybug, extending her arm out to grab her. Ladybug jumped into the air and used her yo-yo to pull herself higher into the air. She landed behind the monster, who promptly spun around to try and hit Ladybug with her extended arm. Ladybug leaned back and ducked under the arm just in time to see it fly over her. She sprung back into the air, trying to keep moving so she didn't get hit.

"We need a plan Chat," Ladybug said, landing then ducking to avoid another punch from the fake Inkess.

"I don't suppose you have one," Chat said, hopping off a wall to avoid being hit by one of Rogercop's blasts.

Ladybug examined the situation, the world going black and white in her mind. Quickly, things lit up in her mind one by one. First the ram Miraculous, then Inkess, then Rogercop. It wasn't her best plan, but she needed to get the akumas away before she could come up with a better one.

Ladybug went into a roll under one of Inkess' arms and grabbed the Miraculous she had dropped. "Hey Inky, Metalhead," Ladybug called out, dangling the ram Miraculous for the akumas to see, "I think you might want these as well."

Purple butterfly marks flared over both the akumas faces, the butterfly Miraculous holder must've not been happy. "Give those to us now," Rogercop said, holding out his hand to take it."

"Hm," Ladybug said, holding the small jewels, "let me think on it... no." She tossed the Miraculous in her hand, "Hey Chat, you wanted to play a party game, how about keep away?"

She threw the ram miraculous through the air, Chat catching it and safely securing it.

"Better run Chat," Ladybug said, "cause I think they want that just as bad as you do." She quickly mouthed the words, "keep them busy," so the akumas couldn't hear.

Chat nodded, "ditching me with all the hard jobs, that's animal cruelty." Chat did a backflip to dodge Rogercop's blast, jumping in the air afterwards to avoid being hit by a punch from Inkess. "Missed me," Chat said, "clearly you didn't get points for marksmanship at the police academy." Chat leaned back to duck under another one of Inkess' punches, "and you... well my advice won't matter cause you're just a fake who won't even listen to a word I say."

The Inkess threw another punch, Chat flipping back to dodge, "see, no listening skills. Maybe you should work on that."

Chat jumped down the hall, "you two can't even catch a stray cat, I hope you two don't plan on becoming animal control workers. I guess you guys don't want the Miraculous I got." Chat leaped further down the hall, both akumas following him.

 _He sure has a habit of annoying people,_ Ladybug thought. She decided to keep that noted and ran down another hall. She just needed Chat to keep them distracted for a bit. Her current plan was to find the real Inkess and defeat her, that'll get rid of the fake that was chasing Chat, then they'll be able to take Rogercop out together and leave with the Miraculous.

She burst through the front door of the Louvre, not surprised to find exactly what she was hoping for. The army of Inkess' had gathered around the museum, each one slowly moving towards where Ladybug was standing.

Ladybug had hoped for this, but she honestly expected there to be less of them. "How am I gonna find the real one," Ladybug mumbled to herself, "there's gotta be like a hundred." One of them had to be real, she had to stand out somehow. The fakes couldn't talk, but the real one could just stay quiet. There had to be something else that set them apart, something she could pick up on.

"OUT THE WAY," someone yelled behind her. Ladybug side stepped just in time to avoid Chat Noir running into her.

"Chat!?"

"Oh," Chat said, coming to a stop next to Ladybug, "fancy seeing you here my lady."

"What are you doing out here," Ladybug said, "I told you to keep Rogercop and the fake Inkess busy."

"And I am, but it was hard to dodge them in a confined ar..." Chat didn't finish because he grabbed Ladybug and tackled her out of the way before she could get hit by one of Rogercop's beams. "Like I said, Kinda hard to dodge, I needed more room."

Chat got up and helped Ladybug back to her feet. "We gotta move," Ladybug said, "you were right about more space, and with more Inkess', we'll neeed all the space we can get. do you still have the ram Miraculous?"

"In my pocket," Chat said, "like I said, no paws but mine."

"The let's get moving." Ladybug threw her yo-yo into the air, using it to pull herself up to the roof of a nearby building. Chat used his weapon to vault up to the building and both of them ran next to each other."

"Sorry if I screwed up your plan," Chat said, "I didn't know you were going to be outside."

"It's okay," Ladybug said, "I didn't really have a plan if I'm honest, I was kinda making it up as we went along."

"So what now?"

"We need to find the real Inkess, she's still the biggest threat. If we can take her out, we can take out Rogercop with a bit more ease."

"How are we gonna find her though? Is there something to set her apart from the rest?"

"The akumatized object," Ladybug said, "she's the only one who actually has it."

"Got it, so we go jumping through ink monsters until we find a paintbrush?"

"Assuming it's a paint brush. It's possible it could be something similar, or something else entirely."

"So we go ink jumping until we find who knows what."

"Yeah, pretty much."

"And Rogercop?"

"We'll figure it out when we get there."

Chat thought for a bit, "what if we do it like we did yesterday? We wash away the ink so only the akumatized item remains?"

"We'd need a lot more water than we have, plus we'd need them all to group together."

"LADYBUG! CHAT NOIR!"

Both of them froze when they heard their names, shouted in a monstrous tone. They turned around to see a exactly what they expected, a monster. All of the Inkess' were merging together and becoming one giant Inkess. She was slowly growing in size as more and more Inkess' merged into the giant mass. Before they new it, she was taller than the Louvre, and still growing more and more.

"Well," Chat said, "at least we don't have to worry about getting them all together." His ears twitched again, "DUCK!"

Ladybug did as instructed just in time to avoid a series of blasts from Rogercop, flying above them in his car. "I didn't account for a giant monster," she said, taking off again with Chat close behind her, "we need a plan, a real one."

Chat thought for a second, "what about our powers?"

Ladybug was about to shoot him down, but stopped herself. "That might actually work." Ladybug stopped and threw her yo-yo into the air, "LUCKY CHARM!"

A flutter of ladybugs emerged from her yo-yo and formed together to make a small red lock with black spots. "A lock," Ladybug said as she caught the small trinket, "but it's already closed, and there's no key to it." She had to jump out of the way to dodge another blast from Roger cop and the two heroes took off again.

"You figured out how to use a bowl to beat Inkess last time," Chat said, "you can figure out how to use this."

"Yeah," Ladybug said, "I can figure it out." Despite forcing her tone, she wasn't to confident in her own words. What could she possibly do with a lock, especially a lock she couldn't open? If it had opened, she may have been able to use it to lock up Rogercop, but the lock was completely useless against Inkess since she could just slip through it. No, she couldn't use it against the akumas, which meant she had to figure out what else she had to use it on, but where in Paris could she used a closed lock.

Maybe she could slip a chain through it? No, the lock was too small. She could try a rope, but there was was no way that would hold together. "Gah," Ladybug said, "I can't think of anything. The only thing I can do with this lock is throw it into a riv... THAT'S IT!"

"What's it," Chat said.

"The lock isn't something we need to use, it's a hint for where we need to go."

"I don't follow."

"You will." Ladybug turned in another direction and ran that way, "stick with me. I actually have a plan this time, A real plan."

Chat turned and followed her, "care to fill me in."

"You'll see," Ladybug said, no longer faking her confidence, "but I do need you to get Rogercop out of the air."

Chat looked up at the hover car that was chasing them, "I can manage that."

"Perfect," Ladybug said, "once he's on the ground, we can use his lack of mobility against him."

Ladybug stopped when she got to where she needed to go, Chat quickly realizing her thought process. "Pont des arts," he said, looking at the bridge which was surprisingly empty for this time, "is now really the time for a love lock promise?"

Ladybug rolled her eyes, "You wanted to soak them. Well, we got them all together, and now we have more water."

Chat smirked, "I think I see what you're planning." Chat spun his stick, "alright, I'll work on Rogercop." He stuck one end of his stick into the ground and used it to raise himself up to Rogercop's car.

Ladybug spun her yo-yo at her side, "alright Inkess, you and me."

 **o0o**

Chat landed on top of the car with his heels making a click as he landed on the roof. He immediately sunk his claws into the car in case Rogercop tried to flip it again. Apparently, the akuma had learned from their last fight and immediately got out of his car.

"Officer, I'd like to report a crime," Chat said, "there's a man in a blue metal suit who has committed several air traffic laws."

Rogercop didn't even bother offering a surrender this time, he just opened fire. Chat took his claws out of the car and leaped back, hanging off the back bumper. He grabbed the underside of the car and climbed on it like monkey bars. If he was lucky,he could get behind Rogercop and knock him off. Maybe not the safest plan for him or the akuma, but it would get him on the ground like Ladybug had wanted.

He climbed until he was holding onto the front bumper and quietly pulled himself up. The akuma was looking over the edge where Chat had dropped off, almost like he was trying to see where Chat had landed. Perfect. Chat quickly sprung up, held his stick like a bat, and charged at the akuma. He swung his weapon, hitting Rogercop as hard as he could in the side of the head.

He was caught of guard when the metal man didn't even flinch. Rogercop slowly turned around and picked Chat up by his shirt, "you are under arrest."

"Strange," Chat said, trying as hard as he could to pry the akumas fingers from his shirt, "I don't feel under arrest. If anything, I feel like I'm over the Seine."

"Jokes won't help you," Rogercop said, "nothing will. Quit resisting and make this easier."

"But easy is never fun," Chat said. He had to admit though, the situation he was in wasn't easy, and it certainly wasn't fun. The grip Rogercop had on him was mechanical and impossible to break. Not that it would help him much, he would still be in the same position as he was before, unable to get Rogercop to the ground.

He probably should have thought of something before he jumped into action, but he was here now, which meant he had to improvise. Seeing as brute force was out of the picture, he needed to be more clever. Seeing the trick he used last time wasn't going to work, he was going to need to get more creative.

The akuma was strong and tank like, but that also meant he lacked mobility. Chat was quick and agile, which gave him an immediate advantage over his enemy. It was too bad they were currently in a strength contest, and there was no way he could win that.

He needed to be clever, think like a cat. If he could escape Rogercop's grip, he could definitely use the akumas lack of agility against him. Now he just needed to get out of his grip.

"So you're detaining me," Chat said, stalling for time until he had a better idea, "so, when do I get my one phone call. I feel I need to call my lawyer because I feel like your methods aren't entirely legal."

"You will be permitted to make a call after processing," Rogercop said, "but you will be detained." He reached for Chat's hand, specifically, his ring, "for now, all items stolen must be returned."

Chat moved his hand back, "this was a gift, it might be from my grandmother and she get's really upset when I don't wear her gifts." He planted his foot on Rogercop's free hand and used it as leverage to get his other foot up to kick the akuma in the small bit of his face that wasn't covered by armor. The robotic man clearly felt that as he dropped Chat and stumbled back. Chat fell off the car and gripped down on the bumper. His stick fell out of his hands, but he managed to catch it between his feet.

Rogercop leaned over the edge to look at Chat. Chat let go with one hand and grabbed his stick, "another charge to add to the list, destruction of police property." He thrust his stick into one of the wheels of the car, jamming the wheel so it stopped spinning. The hover car veered out of control, spiraling through the air. Chat clung to the bumper as tight as he could to stay on. The car spun around several times before Chat gripped his stick and ripped it out of the wheel to let it spin again. The car readjusted itself, hovering in an upside down position.

Chat fell down and landed on the of the car, landing on his stomach with one hand still on the bumper. He pushed himself back onto his feet, stumbling a bit because all the spinning made him extremely dizzy. "Well," Chat said once he regained his balance, "I think that definitely got him out of the air." Chat cracked his neck, "now, how to get back down?"

As Chat looked over the edge, trying to determine how he could get down, he noticed something. Rogercop wasn't anywhere to be seen. He wasn't on the bridge, wasn't on the bridge, and there were no ripples on the water. He had vanished out of sight.

"That can't be good," Chat said, trying to find the bright blue robot officer. He dug his claws into the bottom of the car and hung off the side to get a better view of the entire scene. Before he could react, a blue arm reached out from the top of the car and grabbed Chat by the leg. Chat was pulled by his leg and slammed into the roof.

Rogercop held Chat by his leg, dangling him in the air as he stood on the roof with magnetic boots.

"Nice boots," Chat said, his hood fell off his head as he desperately tried to not look down to see the giant drop below, "you seriously need to tell me where to get a pair like that."

Rogercop didn't say anything, Chat could tell that the officer was extremely angry. "Not in a talking mood," Chat said, "well good, cause now is the time for action." He planted the end of his stick against Rogercop's chest and extended it. Chat gripped onto the end of his stick tight as it pushed him away from the akuma, pulling his leg from his grip. It hurt a lot, and he may have injured his leg a bit, but at least he got out of Rogercop's grip.

He quickly sunk his claws into the hood of the car so he didn't plunge down to the ground. Rogercop reached out to crab him again, but Chat tossed himself back and grabbed onto the front of the car. The akuma fired his wrist blasters to try and catch Chat, the hero pulled himself up in order to avoid getting hit.

Chat got onto the bottom of the car, limping a bit as he stood up. "Okay," Chat mumbled to himself, trying to limp to the center of the car, "can't beat him with brute force, can't shake him off." Chat had no idea what to do at this point, and he had already wasted a couple minutes fighting Rogercop, so Ladybug only had a few more left.

Chat gripped his head in frustration. Rogercop was too tough on his own and it really didn't help that he had this stupid car to keep him in the... THE CAR! Chat had been so focused on the akuma himself, he hadn't once thought about the car. Instead of kicking Rogercop off the car, he needed to get the car on the ground.

Chat limped over to the driver side of the car as Rogercop slowly walked up from the passenger side. "Officer," Chat said, "don't you know it's unsafe to not have a driver behind the wheel?" He jumped off, catching himself on the door handle of the car. He planted his good foot on the car and pulled on the handle, surprised to find that the door wasn't even locked. He sprung inside and landed on the ceiling of the car, closing the door behind him. Rogercop managed to catch up to him just as he slammed the door shut.

"It's not safe to open the door on a moving vehicle," Chat said. He put his stick into the handle of the door and extended it, jamming the door so that it couldn't open. Rogercop struggled to open the door as Chat grabbed the wheel.

No matter how hard Chat pulled, he was completely unable to move the wheel. Why was it so hard to move? If he couldn't move the wheel, his plan couldn't work. He scanned the inside of the car to see if he could find anything else, and quickly found his problem. The car had a small panel in the area where the radio should be that had a screen currently said "auto pilot".

"Can't have that on," Chat said. He took one hand off the wheel and pressed the panel, switching the car over to manual. As he did that, the hand that was on the wheel pulled down on it, causing Chat to accidentally flip the car.

Chat landed on the floor of the car with a thud. "Okay," Chat said as he pushed himself up into the seat, "first problem fixed. Now, let's have this college student who has been driven around his whole life and has had no experience with driving outside of Forza see how well he can drive a suped up hover car." Chat froze for a second, taking his own words into consideration for a second befor sitting down and buckling his seatbelt.

He put both hands on the wheel, getting a feel for the way the car moved. "So it operates on jet rules," Chat said once he got a feel for the controls, "perfect." Chat pushed forward on the wheel, putting the car into a nose dive. "this is probably going to hurt... a lot."

The car crashed on the bank of the Seine, Rogercop rolling off when he hit the ground. Chat bounced in the car a couple times as the airbags deployed.

Once the car came to a stop, Chat shrunk his stick back to it's normal size and put it on his back before kicking the door open and rolled out of the vehicle. "Well that hurt... a lot less than I thought actually," He was definitely in pain, but nowhere near as bad as is should have been. Probably part of his powers. It was pretty calm right now, but when he detransformed, he was definitely going to feel it in the morning.

He stretched a bit to try and ease his soreness, but he picked up the sound of metal boots behind him. Chat jumped back with his good foot just in time to avoid Rogercop's blaster fire. Chat landed not far away, managing to see the absolutely livid look on Rogercop's face.

"You think you got him mad enough?"

Chat looked over his shoulder to see Ladybug back to back with him spinning her yo-yo. "No," Chat said as he flipped his hood back up, "give me five more seconds, I'm sure that he'd be demanding our heads on a platter."

"I don't think I'd want that," Ladybug said.

"Suit yourself," Chat said, "so how's it going with Inkess?"

"LADYBUG!"

Chat looked over his shoulder again to see the giant ink monster with spikes for arms.

Ladybug gave him a nervous smile, "well..."

 **o0o**

"Alright Inkess, you and me," Ladybug said as Chat took off into the air to take on Rogercop. Honestly, Ladybug was 90% certain that she gave him the easier job. But she couldn't let him take on Inkess, she needed to take on the massive ink monster herself. Her mistake, her job to fix it.

Now... how to lure her over the bridge to drop her in? Inkess was not going to step over it willingly, which meant Ladybug was going to have to trick her. It was a good thing Ladybug had the perfect bait to use, herself. Inkess wasn't going to rest until she had Ladybug, so Ladybug could use that.

The monster was slow and bulky, still a decent distance away despite the time she had to catch up with the heroes. Maybe Ladybug could use that. If she kept Inkess angry, she might be able to draw her into the trap without the ink monster ever knowing what's going on.

Ladybug threw her yo-yo and pulled herself to another building, getting closer to Inkess. "HEY BLOBBY," Ladybug yelled once she was close enough that she was sure Inkess could hear her clearly, "looking for me?"

"LADYBUG," The giant Inkess yelled. Ladybug was certain that was all the monster could yell at this point, maybe it was all the collective minds that had merged together could focus on at this point. Or maybe Inkess just really wanted her dead.

Either way, she had the monster's attention, now to keep it.

Inkess increased the mass in her hand, making her fist grow until it was like a giant hammer. As Inkess brought down her fist in an attempt to crush Ladybug, the hero throwing her yo-yo to pull herself away just before the Inkess caved in the roof of the building Ladybug was standing beforehand.

 _Okay,_ Ladybug thought to herself, _I don't think I need to worry about making her mad._

Inkess held up her other hand, willing it to transform it into a giant spike. She thrust the spike towards Ladybug, forcing her to flip back to dodge.

"LADYBUG," Inkess yelled again as she withdrew her spike for the ground.

"INKESS," Ladybug shouted back, mocking the psychotic akuma, "come on Inky, I'm right here, come get me."

Inkess transformed her hammer hand into another spike, driving it towards Ladybug. Ladybug jumped to the side, dodging just in time to avoid the spike. As she jumped, the spike caught the end of her ponytail and cut off a bit of her hair.

"HEY, WATCH THE HAIR," Ladybug telled as she landed, "I don't normally keep it in a ponytail, you'll make it all uneven when I switch back to my normal hairstyle."

Inkess simply continued to shout Ladybug's name and driving her spikes at the hero, forcing Ladybug to hop around just to avoid getting hit. As Ladybug dodged, she noticed Inkess wasn't moving forward herself, simply extending her spiked arms out to try and hit Ladybug from a distance. Maybe this monster wasn't as mindless as Ladybug had first thought. This could be a bit tougher than she had planned.

"Come on," Ladybug called out, throwing her yo-yo to pull herself to aother building in hopes of getting away from Inkess' constant onslaught, "don't you want to catch me? It feels like you're not even trying."

Inkess simply extended her arms more and more as Ladybug got further away. She wasn't taking the risk of getting closer to the Seine. Ladybug kept backing away, but Inkess refused to get any closer. Ladybug was in trouble if she couldn't figure out how to get Inkess to come closer.

 _Come on,_ Ladybug thought to herself, _think. What can I use to get her to come closer? Her rage? Her powers? Some kind of weakness?_

The last one really rang in her mind. It rang out cause as she thought it, she noticed something. As Inkess extended her arms, other parts of her body began to shrink. She was using the ink from the other parts of her body to make her arms longer, she couldn't use more ink than what was part of her body.

If Ladybug could get Inkess to overextend herself, use more ink than she had, then the monster would be forced to get closer. There was one problem though, Inkess certainly had no lack of ink being a giant and all. She was really going to have to force Inkess to stretch herself thin. She might as well try it since that was the best idea she had.

"Come on," Ladybug called as she jumped back to dodge another one of Inkess' spikes, "is that all you got? Two pathetic spikes is all you got, you're never gonna hit me like that."

Inkess let put a loud roar, Ladybug was pretty certain the monster was still trying to yell her name and her shouts had just devolved into a gargled mess, before extending more arms then Ladybug could count out of her body, each one bearing a spike at the end.

"Me and my big mouth," Ladybug mumbled. Inkess began a constant barrage, driving every spike towards where Ladybug was. Ladybug was barely able to dodge all the spikes because of how many there were. Her movements were so erratic, she wasn't even certain if she was heading towards the Seine anymore.

At the very lest, Ladybug was certain that Inkess was overexerting her powers by the fact that Inkess was slowly crawling forward. Either that, or she was so focused on trying to attack Ladybug that she stopped thinking about not getting closer to the Seine. Either way, Ladybug's plan was working now, at least it would if she could find her way back towards the river. She had lost her direction in the swarm of inky spikes.

In the swarm of spikes, Inkess did manage to hit ladybug a couple times. She scraped Ladybug's leg, arm, and her side as well as actually puncturing her shoulder. Ladybug winced a bit as she got hit, but didn't stop moving, she couldn't afford to. No matter how much it hurt to land or flip, she had to keep going.

She finally backflipped off a rooftop down to the ground, hoping she could at least get out of Inkess' line of sight long enough to catch her breath and get her bearings. Well, she had managed to keep going the right way despite losing her sense of direction. Ladybug heard her earrings beep, she hadn't been paying attention and couldn't see how many spots she had left, but she was definitely rushed for time. She was hoping Chat was having better luck than she was.

As if to answer her question, Rogercop's car crashed down on the other side of the Seine. "CHAT," Ladybug yelled, running over to check on her partner. She stopped halfway across the bridge when she saw that Chat was okay, he seemed like he had a small limp, but he was okay. At least she thought so, but Rogercop appeared a small bit away from Chat, looking like he was ready to rip the poor kitten limb from limb, and began firing his blasters. Chat hopped back with on foot and landed in the middle of the bridge. Ladybug ran to help him, stopping behind him and putting her back to his.

"Think you got him mad enough," Ladybug said as she spun her yo-yo.

Chat whipped his head around to look at her. "No," he said as he flipped his hood back up, "give me five more seconds, I'm sure that he'd be demanding our heads on a platter."

"I don't think I'd want that," Ladybug said.

"Suit yourself," Chat said, "so how's it going with Inkess?"

"LADYBUG!"

Ladybug turned her attention back to Inkess at the edge of the the bridge, who appeared a lot smaller, a little shorter than some of the nearby buildings, but also with a lot more arms.

Ladybug gave him a nervous smile, "well... I got her to the bridge."

"And I got Rogercop out of the sky," Chat said, taking his stick and holding it like a bat, "but neither of them are on the bridge."

Ladybug thought for a second. She thought about both of the akumas, their strengths, weaknesses, goals. And then it hit her, the motives of the akumas and how she could use them. "I have one thing," she whispered back, "do what I do, keep talking about Rogercop arresting us, and be ready to use your power when I say so." Chat nodded in agreement. Ladybug drew her yo-yo back to her hand and clipped it to her belt, raising both her hands in the air, "we give up."

Chat put his stick on his back and mimicked Ladybug's motion, "we're in too bad of a shape, we can't keep fighting."

 _Chat caught on quick,_ Ladybug thought, _I guess he knows what I'm doing._

 _I hope Ladybug knows what she's doing,_ Chat thought, _cause I'm honestly just going along and hoping._

"We can't keep fighting," Ladybug said, gripping her pierced shoulder in pain, "we clearly can't win. We surrender, let the law do with us as it wishes."

"Yeah," Chat said, raising his injured foot because he wasn't able to stand on it anymore, "you've hurt us a lot, but we haven't done anything to you but make you more angry." Chat stuck his arms out with the bottom of his wrists up, "go ahead and cuff us."

"Or punish us for the misdeeds we've done," Ladybug said, "just stop, we can't take anymore."

Chat leaned back and whispered, "you sure this is gonna work?"

"No," Ladybug said, "kinda just winging it, hoping for the best."

"Ladybug, I've been pretty trusting up to this point since we're supposed to be partners and all, but I'm not so sure about this one."

"It's only a hunch, but I have faith in it, trust me." Chat froze for a second, but finally nodded in agreement.

Rogercop seemed hesitant at first, but slowly seemed to warm up to the idea, "very well, you two will be coming with me and be tried for your crimes."

"They don't need to be tried," Inkess said, surprising Ladybug when she finally said something that wasn't her name, "we know what their crimes are, let's just take care of this now."

"No one is above the law," Rogercop said, "not even us. We must take them in a try them for their crimes so that we may determine their guilt."

"We don't need to determine their guilt," Inkess said, sounding slightly more irate, "we know of the crimes they've committed. We witnessed them, some of them were against us."

"But we still must obey the law."

"SCREW THE LAW," Inkess yelled, encroaching towards the other akuma, "they didn't follow it, they don't deserve to be protected by it."

Rogercop stepped a little forward himself, "just because they have not followed the law does not mean they are not protected by it all the same."

"But they shouldn't be protected by it."

It was exactly as Ladybug had thought. While both akumas wanted to beat Ladybug and Chat Noir, both had different end goals. Inkess wanted them to pay for stealing the paintings ad causing so much destruction while Rogercop wanted to capture them and bring them to trial like the good officer he was. With both of them having different incentives, they were bound to argue when they actually got Ladybug and Chat.

The two akumas kept going back and forth like this, slowly getting closer to each other. Ladybug watched as they yelled and slowly got closer to each other. She was waiting for the right moment before they did anything. She just kept watching them as they got closer. She was also sure she saw a butterfly mark over both of their faces at one point, but both were to focused on each other to pay attention to anything else.

Finally, they were in place. "I hope you know how to swim Chat," Ladybug said.

"We're about to find out," Chat said as he raised his hand above his head. "CATACLYSM!" The black ball came to existence in his hand and swirled a round his arm to create the aura of destruction in his palm. He scratched his claws against the bridge, causing the entire thing to start to crumble into dust. In an instant, the entire bridge fell apart and crumbled beneath the feet of the four that were standing on it.

All of them fell into the river with a giant splash. Rogercop began to sink to the bottom, unable to swim due to his lack of mobility. Inkess dissolved in the water, leaving nothing but a small pen in a pool of black water. Ladybug and Chat Noir stared at each other under the water for a moment, his hood was floating off his head and her scarf was starting to fall off her face. Ladybug nodded her head towards where Rogercop was, Chat Noir catching on and swimming towards the akuma to retrieve the akumatized object, wincing a bit as he did due to his foot. Ladybug turned and swam to get Inkess' object.

She quickly grabbed the pen and swam up to the surface as fast as she could. She rose above the surface and gasped for air, Chat quickly surfaced nearby. Both of them swam to the shore and pulled themselves onto one of the stone banks.

"Did you get it," Ladybug said, gasping between her words to catch her breath.

Chat opened his hand and let a small whistle fall to the ground, "it was the one part of him that wasn't attached to his suit, it has to be it."

Ladybug stood up and dropped the pen to the ground, "Alright." Chat stood up and hopped on one foot for a bit. Simultaneously, they both stomped down on the items they retrieved, crushing them to bits. From the remains of the objects, two black and purple butterflies appeared.

Ladybug took her yo-yo off her belt and slid her finger along the center, opening it up and revealing a glowing center. She prepped it, ready to toss her weapon, when a bubbling came from the surface of the water. In an instant, a horde of small black akumas emerged from the water and came together to form a giant face made of butterflies.

"Ladybug and Chat Noir," The face said, "so you are the thorns in my side that have defeated my akumas."

Ladybug stepped forward, "that's right, and you must be the jerk that's been sending them. Who are you?"

"Who I am is not important," the floating butterfly face said, "all that matters is that you have items that belong to me."

"These don't belong to you," Chat said, stepping forward as well, "they were given to us to stop you."

The butterfly face laughed, "you, stop me? You will never be able to do that, give me your Miraculous and make this easier for all of us."

"We will never give you our Miraculous," Ladybug said, brimming with confidence, "we're the protectors of Paris, and at the end of this all, you'll give us your Miraculous."

The butterfly man laughed again, "except you are not the protectors. In the eyes the people, you are the tormentors of Paris."

Ladybug winced at the remark. He was right, they were criminals in the eyes of Paris, nothing they could do could change that.

Chat stepped in front of Ladybug, "it doesn't matter what the people think, it doesn't matter what anyone thinks, all that matters is that we're the heroes and we will take you down. You could call us thieves, you could call us criminals, you could scream that we're blackguard for the world to hear, it won't change that fact."

Ladybug looked at her partner with mild admiration, then turned back to the butterfly figure, "he's right, we're the heroes here, and we're gonna take you down no matter what."

The figure grimaced, "very well, then prepare yourselves, for I will send every akuma that you can imagine, each one worse than the last, until I retrieve your Miraculous, all while Paris cheers my..."

Ladybug didn't let him finish. She threw her yo-yo and spun it around in the air. As she spun it, all of the butterflies that were forming the mans face were captured inside. The giant face roared as she captured all of his butterflies. In a short amount of time the giant face was no more, all of his butterflies were trapped in her yo-yo. "I was done listening to him talk," she said.

She opened her yo-yo, releasing two small butterflies inside. "The copies must've faded away," Chat said as he watched the akumas, "now about those repairs, I personally don't like the idea of people blaming us for the destruction of a pretty significant Parisian landmark."

Ladybug nodded in agreement. She took the lock she had in her pocket and spun it in her hand, "hope this works the way Tikki said it would." She threw it in the air, "MIRACULOUS LADYBUG!"

In an instant, the lock burst into a flurry of ladybugs. They swarmed around the where the bridge was, completely restoring the bridge to it's original state. They swirled around Ladybug and Chat, quickly fixing all the injuries they obtained from the fight, and the two that were akumatized were safely transported to the bridge with no noticeable injuries.

Ladybug and Chat Noir watched in awe as the ladybugs burst flew across Paris, likely to fix all the other damage they had caused and return the people transformed into Inkess' back to where they belong.

Chat was so awestruck he could barely work out a sentence, "this... this is awesome."

"It's more than awesome," Ladybug said, "it's... Miraculous."

As fast as they appeared, the ladybugs faded into non-existence. Both the heroes looked at each other as they tried to come up with words.

"Well," Chat finally said, "I'd say that was a job well done."

"Yeah," Ladybug said. She extended her arm out with a fist. Chat did the same as they met in a fist bump.

"Pound it," the two heroes said in unison. As their fists bumped, both of their Miraculous beeped.

"We should get out of here fast," Chat said, looking at his ring, "unless you want that kind officer to find out who's behind that mask."

Ladybug looked over to where the man who was Rogercop just a minute ago (a bit surprised to see that it was actually Sabrina's dad) and quickly turned back to Chat, "right, let's get out of here for now. We'll talk about this later, top of the Eiffel Tower tomorrow evening."

Chat nodded before taking his stick and vaulting himself onto a nearby building. Ladybug was about to do the same when she heard loud shouting from nearby. She turned to see Roger Raincomprix storming towards her as fast as she could. She only made out a couple things, him talking about arrest and stuff, before sticking her tongue out at the man and pulling herself into the air with her yo-yo.

 **o0o**

"So run that by me one more time," Marinette said as she and Alya walked into school together the next morning.

"I got to talk with that awesome cop hero guy," Alya said, excitement flowing from every inch of her body, "he wanted to question me about those thieves from the day before since I was there. I even got to ride in his hover car. Then, one of those thieves jumped on top of the car and the cop guy got out and fought him. The whole thing was awesome. The only thing that could've made it better was if Chloe didn't force him to take her with."

"Sounds cool," Marinette said with a smile.

"Girl, it was out of this world," Alya said, "like something out of a comic book."

"It sounds cool," Marinette said, "wish I could've been there." Marinette was in a good mood today. The fight with the akumas yesterday made the news, although the facts were still as messed up as last time. The akumas were still deemed the heroes, any destruction was blamed on Ladybug and Chat Noir while any credit to the repairs was given to the 'heroes'. How the people came up with that, she had no idea.

That sounded like it should ruin her day, but she was still in a good mood about the whole thing. She had won, her and Chat Noir had beat two super villains. Even if Paris saw her as the villain, she had done good and nothing could get her down right now.

"Earth to Marinette," Alya said, snapping her fingers in her friends face. Marinette snapped out of her thoughts and turned to Alya. "You had a bit of a goofy smile on your face, what are you thinking about?"

"Oh," Marinette said, "I... just had a pretty good day yesterday."

"Is it cause you ditched the second most of school yesterday," Alya said, "when I met you, I never thought you'd be the kinda girl to ditch like that."

"There's a lot more to me than you know," Marinette said, "but a lot that you don't want to."

Alya laughed, "I might pry into it one day, but I'll let it lie for now."

"Thanks," Marinette said with a smile. The first bell rang to signal they should get to class.

"You ditched yesterday," Alya said, "might not be a good idea to be late today."

"Probably," Marinette thought. She was gonna have to come up with an excuse for yesterday, she might be able to get away with a family matter. Ms. Bustier could be forgiving, but Ms. Mendeleiev would probably be less understanding. As long as they didn't bother to call her parents, she'll be fine.

"Come on," Alya said, halfway up the steps, "or are you ditching today too?"

Marinette should her head, to both clear her thoughts and to answer, before climbing up the stairs and catching up to Alya.

 **o0o**

Adrien stared out the window of the silver sedan came to a stop next to the school. It almost hurt to look at the school.

"You disobeyed me Adrien," his father said. Adrien turned to see the face of Gabriel Agreste on the tiny screen, it annoyed him immensely that his father didn't even decide to scold him in person. "Take a look at that school," his father continued.

Adrien looked longingly out the window, dedicating every detail of the school he was never going to see again to memory. "Yes father."

"You will never, I say never, go back there again," Gabriel said

"But father..."

"Without your bodyguard," Gabriel cut off. Adrien froze with confusion for a brief second before quickly lighting up at the realization of what his father was saying. He was going to let Adrien go to school.

"He will drop you off and pick you up everyday," Gabriel continued, "Nathalie has offered to organize your new schedule. You will continue your music, Chinese, and fencing lessons, as well as your photo shoots."

Adrien was so excited, he didn't even care that he had to continue his required extra curricular activities, he was too happy about the small bit of freedom he had finally obtained. He nearly jumped out of his seat.

"Thank you Nathalie," Adrien said, resisting the urge to hug her. He gripped the small screen that his father's face was displayed on, resisting the urge to hug that as well, "thank you father."

Before anything else was said, Adrien spring out of his seat and charged for his school. He finally would be able to meet new people, make friends, have a life. All thanks to Plagg and Chat Noir. If he could hug Chat Noir, he would, but that was physically impossible, so he settled for high fiving himself as he ran up to class.

 **o0o**

Marinette and Alya walked into class together. Almost everyone had arrived so far, save Chloe and her two lackeys. They were probably off making someone else's life miserable. Marinette groaned at the thought. She may not want Chloe bugging her, but she would never wish that onto someone else. She just wished there was something she could do.

Then it hit her.

She could do something. She could do something that she had never thought of doing in her life, but she could do could stand up to Chloe. A thought like that would normally terrify Marinette, Chloe had so much power that standing up to her would scare anyone, but she wasn't going to be scared anymore. She had just taken on a super powered police officer and a girl who's entire body was made out of ink, there was no way Chloe Bourgeois could scare her anymore.

"Come on," Marinette said as she grabbed Alya by the arm and pulled her up. Alya seemed a bit confused, but decided to go along with whatever her friend planned to do. Marinette pushed Alya onto the bench before reclaiming her old seat.

"Excuse me," the pretentious voice rang out. Marinette didn't need to look up to know who it was.

"Oh, hey Chloe," Marinette said with a smile, "what's up?"

"Don't pretend," Chloe said as she crossed her arms, Sabrina did the same behind her, "what exactly do you think you're doing?"

"Taking my seat, getting ready for class, same old same old. How are you?"

"Aggravated," Chloe said, "because some nobody decided to take my seat."

Marinette looked at the empty bench that she sat at yesterday, "your seat looks open to me."

"Don't you play coy," Chloe said, "now you listen here Marinette Dupain-Cheng..."

Marinette stood up, "no, you listen Chloe Bourgeois. I am done bowing down to you, I think a lot of the us are." There was a mild mumble among her classmates, Marinette picked up on then agreeing with her. "Let's make something clear, you're straight up evil."

"Excuse me," Chloe hissed. Sabrina actually took a couple steps away, clearly scared by Chloe's tone."

Marinette planted her palms onto the desk, "I said you're evil, and the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing." Alya lit up with joy as Marinette used the exact words she had told her a couple days ago.

Chloe gave Marinette a look that could kill, "what exactly is that supposed to mean?"

"It means I'm not going to do nothing anymore." Marinette said, "someone needs to stand up to you, might as well be me."

Chloe threw her arms to her side and stomped her foot with a huff, "my father will hear about this."

"Tell him whatever you want," Marinette said, "say whatever you want about me. Scream that I'm the worst person imaginable to the whole world." Marinette was petty sure Chat Noir would be as happy as Alya if he heard his partner using the phrase he had said yesterday.

Chloe let out another huff, "fine, I'll scream whatever I want, and I will ensure that you are _expelled_ by the end of the day."

Chloe pulled out her phone and started to tap the screen, but stopped herself when a gentle hand with a silver ring covered her phone.

"Let it go Chloe," Adrien said, "it's just a seat, nothing too big."

Chloe seemed almost distressed by the fact that Adrien wasn't on her side, "But... but... Adrikins?"

"Just go sit Chloe. You don't need to make a scene out of this."

Chloe turned between Adrien and Marinette for a moment before giving another huff and storming over to her seat, Sabrina following her lead and sitting next to her.

Adrien was a little pleased with himself. He knew how Chloe could get when she got angry, he was glad he put a stop to her before she got out of control. He turned towards Marinette and gave her a small wave with a light smile. Marinette simply turned her head away with a huff. Adrien slowly lowered his hand and let out a disheartened sigh before sitting down with Nino, planting his forehead on the desk.

Nino leaned in and whispered to Adrien, "dude, you want to make friends, right? Well why don't you try talking to Marinette? You know, about the chewing gum?"

"Oh yeah," Adrien whispered back, "and what am I supposed to say? 'Hey, sorry my friend that you likely hate decided to put gum on my seat and made you think I did it'. Personally, I don't think that would go over well."

"Then be yourself," Nino said, "you're not gonna get anywhere if you let her think you're someone else."

Adrien lifted his head up, "You know, you're right. Thanks."

Nino pointed at Adrien with finger pistols, "hey, that's what friends are for man."

Adrien gave off a bright smile, "You know I think I'm starting to figure that out."

Nino and Adrien laughed for a bit as Ms. Bustier walked in and started class.

 **o0o**

Marinette sighed as she looked out at the rain that was coming down. It wasn't even slightly overcast earlier, now rain was coming down like every bit of water in the sky wanted to be on the ground. She had barely walked out from the cover of the school for a brief second, but had already gotten absolutely soaked in a matter of seconds.

"It's really coming down," someone said behind her.

Marinette turned around to see Adrien Agreste standing there, looking at the sky and watching the rain fall, "my dad's normally too overprotective, but I'm kinda glad that he always makes me carry an umbrella now."

Marinette turned away from him with a huff. Adrien sighed as he opened his umbrella and began to walk out into the rain. He stopped himself on the first couple of steps. "Be yourself," he mumbled to himself.

Adrien turned around to look at Marinette, "look, I'm sorry. I swear, I didn't put that gum there and I was just trying to remove it, but I'm sorry all the same. I... I don't want to be your enemy, I don't want to be anyone's enemy." He stepped a bit closer to allow Marinette under his umbrella, "I know you have no reason to trust me but I... I just want to start over." He flashed a bright toothy smile, "my name is Adrien, what's yours?"

Marinette froze for a bit. This was the last thing she expected from anyone associated with Chloe. Chloe always had a method, she would target someone who either wronged her personally or annoyed her, which Marinette had done. However, Chloe was always direct with how she was mean. Stay out of her direct path and you don't get hit. She never bothered with long plans or anything like that, she could always hurt people directly through her fathers influence.

It confused her so much. She couldn't under stand what Chloe was planning. Then a possibility came to mind. Was it... was it possible he was actually apologizing? Was he actually trying to be nice to her? That was completely unlike Chloe or any of her friends. Maybe... maybe he was different.

"Um..." Adrien said, "I guess you don't have to tell me if you don't want, I understand." He turned around and got ready to walk away.

"NO," Marinette said, louder than she intended. she covered her mouth at her own quickly dropped her arm when Adrien turned back around, "M-Marinette... My name is Marinette."

Adrien gave a smile, "it's good to meet you Marinette." A small honk got both their attention and they turned to see a silver sedan parked in front of the school. Adrien rubbed the back of his neck, "I guess that's my ride." He got ready to leave again, but stopped when he noticed something.

"You're soaked," he said as he scanned Marinette. He pushed his umbrella towards her, "here, you should probably take this."

"I-I can't," Marinette said, "I mean, don't you need it?"

"My ride's right there," Adrien said, "but I saw that you walk to school, you could use it more than I could."

Marinette didn't know what to say. He was being nice. He was... he wasn't like Chloe. He was a good person. He stopped Chloe in class, he was giving her his umbrella just for the sake of it. He was... he was nice.

She carefully placed her hand on the umbrella, carefully brushing her skin with his. That brief moment of contact was enough to send a warmth through her body. The feeling was most apparent in her cheeks. Was she... was she blushing? _Bad cheeks,_ She thought to herself, _don't do that._ No matter how hard she tried, the warmth in her cheeks wouldn't fade. Did she feel something for him? Did she... did she love him?

She stared deep into his eyes, getting lost in his emerald gaze. He seemed so nice, so caring, and honestly, so handsome. She couldn't help but stare.

Then the umbrella snapped shut around her. Marinette struggled a bit, meanwhile Adrien was surprised by the whole thing. He couldn't help but let out a small laugh. Marinette pulled the umbrella open and peeked at Adrien laughing, she couldn't help but smile with him.

"I'll see you later Marinette," Adrien said, lifting his bag over his head and heading for his car.

"Y-yeah," Marinette fumbled out, almost at a complete loss for words.

Adrien quickly made his way down the steps towards the car. "So," Plagg said, popping his head out from Adrien's overshirt, "two lover birds in one day."

"Oh please Plagg," Adrien said, "Marinette is just a friend." Adrien lit up with his own words, "a friend." He couldn't help but smile as he ran to the car to seek shelter from the rain.

Marinette watched as he walked away, her blush still strong. "You're certainly love struck," Tikki said as she peeked out of Marinette's bag.

Marinette looked at her shoes and laughed, "does it really come off that obvious?"

"I've seen the look you have more than once," Tikki said with a joyful flutter, "you have love at first sight."

Marinette blushed a little more and brushed a bit of hair behind her ear, "maybe... just a little." she spun the umbrella in her hands, "come on Tikki, let's get home. We still have one more meeting tonight." Tikki nodded ad zipped back into Marinette's bag as the cheery girl walked home with a spin of her umbrella and a skip in her step.

 **o0o**

Chat had never seen the top of the Eiffel tower. He had seen the tower more than once, he did live in Paris after all so he'd catch glimpses of it when be driven to photo shoots or to his father's events. The top... the top was a different story. He could see every bit of Paris, all the lights and cars and such. It was breathtaking. He leaned in a bit as he sat on the railing of the top balcony, nearly falling off as he got lost in the beauty of the city.

"Be careful Chaton," the familiar voice said in a sing song tone. Before he could even turn around to see, Ladybug had already hopped onto the railing next to him and sat down. "You barely became a superhero," she said, "you don't want your career to end just after it began."

Chat laughed as he continued to take in the beauty, although he wasn't looking at Paris anymore, "don't worry about me, Cat's tend to land on their feet."

"I'm not worried about you landing on your feet," Ladybug said, "I'm worried about how hard you land."

Chat laughed as he threw his legs over the railing and stood on the balcony, "well, maybe I shouldn't push my luck then."

Ladybug did the same, "black cat's are known for bad luck, so that's probably best."

Chat sat down on the floor with his legs crossed, Ladybug followed his example. They was a brief moment of silence, Ladybug was the first to break it though. "So... we should probably talk about the whole... criminal thing."

Chat gazed at his shoes, "I guess we should."

Ladybug took a deep breath and recouped her thoughts, "so... we're criminals now."

"I guess we are."

"And all of Paris wants us behind bars."

"They do."

Ladybug sighed, "listen, I can understand if you want to back out, honestly, I do too. So, if you want, we can both just walk away, pretend this never happened, and that'd be..."

"Fine," Chat interrupted, "okay, a thousand other words that don't describe the situation."

"Yeah," Ladybug said, "something like this. Look, it's kinda my fault we're criminals, and I can understand if you don't want to be a part of this."

"Why wouldn't I want to be a part of it," Chat said, "and why would you think it's your fault? I was the idiot who charged in blindly and destroyed a bunch of paintings."

Ladybug let out a small laugh, "I guess that's true, but I was the one who decided to go all the way and full on rob the Louvre."

"Then it was a team effort," Chat said with a smirk, "we both robbed it, just cause it's your idea doesn't mean I didn't help."

"So, you're not going to leave?"

"Why would I? We're a team," Chat said as he reached into his pocket, "besides..." he pulled out the small Ram Miraculous from his pocket, "I don't think we'd have this if we hadn't done this together. Besides, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a little fun robbing a museum."

Ladybug smiled and took the Ram Miraculous, "well you're right about that too, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who enjoyed it. Hope you don't mind, but I got a special box for these." Chat nodded as she put the Miraculous in her pocket, "so we're in this together then?"

"In this until we have them all," Chat said as he leaned in closer to her, "which means you're stuck with me."

"I guess I am Chaton," Ladybug said as she booped him on the nose and pushed him back, "which makes us a team."

Chat lit up with excitement, "does that mean we can have a team name?"

Ladybug tilted her head and laughed, "you're joking?"

"Come on," Chat said, his ears perking up, "all good teams have a name. Avengers, Justice League, the Watchmen..."

"I don't think two people can have a team name."

"Heroes for hire."

Ladybug laughed at his persistence, "alright, alright, you dork, we can have a team name."

Chat lit up even more, "sweet, can we have something like the cat burglars, or maybe just the cats."

"Or maybe you could remember that half of the team is a bug," Ladybug said. Chat laughed, Ladybug not being able to help but join in. Ladybug thought for a second, "hey, what was that you said yesterday?"

Chat tilted his head, "I said a lot of things, maybe you should be more specific."

Ladybug laughed again, "what you said to the butterfly guy? The whole thing about screaming to the world?"

Chat thought for a bit, "you could scream that we're blackguard for the world to hear. That it?"

"Yeah," Ladybug said, "what does that mean? Blackguard?"

Chat looked at the sky, "something I learned in private lessons. It's an old English term that means a person that behaves in a contemptible way or something like that. Why?"

"I like it," Ladybug said, "it may mean something bad, but it still has guard in it. And that's what we are, the evil guardians of Paris."

Chat looked at her with a smile, "I can agree to that."

"Then it's official," Ladybug said, rolling onto her feet, "we're Blackguard then."

Chat stood up as well and stuck out his fist, "alright then, Blackguard it is."

The two bumped fists with smile on their faces, happy about their first success and their new team. They had their first Miraculous, and they weren't even thinking of giving up anymore. They were set on completing it, and no stupid butterfly jerk would ruin it. No, nothing would take down Blackguard.


End file.
